Tales from Cyrodiil: A Dark Beginning
by SickleYield
Summary: A new recipient of the Dark Gift falls down the wrong well and ends up in a whole new world. Rated for violence and the fact that the entire story is about assassins. Now complete, and a big thanks to everyone who took time to leave their reviews.
1. Chapter 1

Tales from Cyrodiil: A Dark Beginning

Author's notes: This story is set shortly after the main quest events on Oblivion. Since the chronology of other quests is variable, I've assumed I can arrange them as I choose with regard to whether or not the player character/Hero of Kvatch has performed them. Thus, the author begs the reader to assume that the Hero of Kvatch was an upstanding individual who never joined the Brotherhood and consequently never performed the Purification quest.

And one more small point: It is possible to drown while playing a vampire in the game. I've thrown this out in favor of the belief that vampires do not breathe, except when speaking, because it makes more sense given the game's apparent conviction that vampires are Undead. I may also include spells or magical items that are only found in mods.

Much love to all those who read my Warcraft fic, and I hope you enjoy this one as well.

Chapter 1

"Halt. _Halt, _I said. Quit running away, curse you!"

The Cheydinhal city guard pounded down the silent street, firing arrow after arrow at the hooded and cloaked figure in front of him. He was a direct-thinking man, so it did not occur to him that the arrows might have something to do with the uncooperative attitude of the criminal. Besides, the streamers of white steam that trailed behind the fleeing felon gave him to understand that he was in pursuit of a vampire, who was not going to stop no matter what, because the sun was coming up.

"Halt!" he shouted again. He was falling behind, because the vampire was not wearing armor, and was consequently able to run much faster. This was the guard's reasoning, at least. It was entirely probably that the horrible agony of the flesh being scorched from its bones was also playing a role. In any case, he did not see what happened when the creature turned a sharp right at an abandoned house and charged frantically toward its back lawn. He got there just in time to see the lid of the well slam closed.

The guard approached cautiously, arrow nocked and bow drawn so tight the string sang. Nothing moved. The purple-flowered bushes that crowded the house waved in a soft breeze. The guard edged slowly up to the well, then kicked the lid back with one foot. A broken lock dropped to the ground. _A lock? On a dry well, on an empty house? _Belatedly, the guard looked again at the house. Wait... He was close to the east gate, which meant...

"Divines," the guard muttered. He put up his bow, but he drew his short sword and looked around him carefully as he closed the lid and gently replaced the broken lock in as normal a position as possible. He'd been _told _about this house, he had. Besides, he had a wife to support, and who was going to take care of Bendelyn if he went down a dry well after a monster and got himself killed? No, much better to go right along with the Count's stated policy anent this particular house and its environs, namely, leave it the Oblivion alone and let the Divines look after it.

Besides, if the vampire wasn't already ashes, it would have to come out sometime.

---

The vampire, meanwhile, had dived down the well looking for a quiet place to die. Its burns were agonizing, it was nearly starving, and it knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it could not bring itself to feed on a sleeping person. Not after the first time, which had been awful beyond belief. Perhaps, if it waited long enough, the pain would stop and everything would just go away.

This was its plan, at least. But then it hit the bottom of the well, and rolled, and kept on rolling through a hole in the stone wall. It was a little surprised to find itself in a cool, dim room with tapestries on the walls and rugs on the floor, but it did not give this much thought. It dove under the nearest bench, collapsed onto its side, and waited for death.

Death, as it happens, is known to be fickle in such cases. What materialized for this particular vampire was not the Grim Reaper. It was a pair of boots.

They were big boots. _Very _big boots, the vampire thought, just before one edged forward and nudged its limp hand. The vampire became aware that, while it would be perfectly happy to die at this moment, being stomped into dust was very low on its preferred list of ways for that to happen. This particular pair seemed to be of dwarven make, dark with a pattern of swirling gold, and whoever would bother to have a set of antiques modified to fit a frame so huge was _not _someone the vampire wished to annoy. Consequently, it lay perfectly still.

A moment later, a face entered its field of view. It was a very large, square face, in keeping with the boots, and evidently belonged to an Orc. (Even in the vampire's present mental state, the apple-green skin and the big tusked underteeth were excellent clues.) Old-gold eyes surveyed the creature impassively. Then a gauntlet-clad hand shot out, seized the vampire by the shoulder, and hauled it out into the torchlight. A booming voice inquired of the room at large:

"All right, whose idea was this?"

"Whose idea was what, Brother?" said a voice that might conceivably belong to an Argonian. The vampire had no intention of moving its eyes far enough to check. The Orc's grip on its charred shoulder hurt intensely, as he was now holding it above the floor with its feet dangling, but it suspected more painful surprises could easily be in store.

"Somebody bringing their work home and not telling me?" the Orc went on. "'Cause I thought that was against the rules, and if it's not I want to know."

"It is against the rules," said the Argonian voice. "I am certain Ocheeva would have told me if it were otherwise." A clawed finger poked at the vampire's shoulder, dislodging black flakes of ash. "Eugh. I think perhaps someone is playing a joke on you, my friend."

"Lousy joke," said the Orc. "Even Telaendril couldn't come up with this one. I put my shield down for five seconds and I come back and I find _this _under the bench. That's pretty quick work, even for her."

"I would not underestimate her potential for spite," said the Argonian voice. "But Telaendril has been gone for some four days, and I am sure I would know if she were back. Perhaps it is some summoning project of M'raaj-Dar's."

"I hear this," said an irritable voice, and the face of a tawny Khajiit with flattened ears hovered into the vampire's view. "And it is nonsense. Why should this one go about summoning charred corpses? For my own amusement? Attribute such ridiculous motives to an Imperial, perhaps." The face disappeared, and a twitching tail came and went as the Khajiit stalked back out of view.

"Marie wouldn't know how," said the Orc. "She never was very interested in magic."

"Perhaps not," said the Argonian. "But perhaps it was not Antoinetta he meant. We are prone to forget it given his... Condition, but Vicente is an Imperial also."

"Oh." The Orc surveyed the vampire in ruminative silence. "But what would Valtieri want it for?"

"I am sure I do not know," said the Argonian. "Nor wish to do so. If you will excuse me, Brother, I have nearly finished this chapter." The sound of pages turning heralded the Argonian's departure.

The Orc stared at the vampire for a moment. The vampire did its best to remain perfectly still and not look at all like something that should be thrown to the ground and repeatedly stepped on. Somewhere in the background, a set of dragging footsteps went past, then trailed into silence.

Finally the Orc shrugged, turned, and strode off down a hallway. The vampire was treated to a very fast-moving view of stone walls, decorated with the occasional hanging or torch bracket. Then they came to a set of heavy doors. The Orc reached out and jerked one open without pause, then slammed it shut behind him. The echo was muffled in the underground chamber, but it was still loud enough that the vampire had to quell an impulse to wince. Now still seemed like a very bad time to point out that it was still animate.

"Does this belong to you?" the Orc said.

"I beg your pardon?" said a mild voice.

"I found it under the bench by my shield," said the Orc. "Just lying there."

The owner of the second voice walked silently into the vampire's field of view, revealing himself to be a smallish Imperial. His hair was brown, and his clothes were dark. A gold medallion flashed brightly on his white, white skin. His face was thin and drawn to the point of being cadaverous, and the spider's nest of thin lines around his eyes did nothing to dispel that impression.

"You disturbed my rest for _this?_" he said.

"Nobody else knows where it came from," the Orc said. He did not sound at all intimidated, though the vampire resisted an urge to shrink away. Valtieri stood and inspected it closely, as though he had found a curious insect. His eyes were almost as red as a Dunmer's. In a Human face, the effect was disturbing.

"Gogron," said Vicente Valtieri. "This bench was not, by any chance, the one located near the shaft of the well?"

"That's the one," said Gogron.

"Then I think you will find that this creature does not, in fact, _belong _to anyone, and that someone ought to go and replace the lock on that lid."

A ruminative silence followed.

"You mean it just tore the lock off?" the Orc said. "_I _couldn't break that lock with my bare hands. Well, unless I was mad about something. That's why we put it on there."

"You are not a vampire crazed with fear and the agony of direct sunlight," said Valtieri. "Beside which I observe that this one has not fed for some days, which no doubt explains both the burns it has suffered and its capacity for hysterical strength. Any more than a few moments' exposure would incinerate it to the point of leaving behind only ashes. Believe me." The man smiled, showing pointed teeth. "I would know."

"So how come it's _not _ashes?" said Gogron.

"Because it is not dead," said Vicente Valtieri.

What happened then was not at all what the vampire expected.

"Huh," said the Orc, and swung the vampire around to look at it face-to-face. "Been playing it

close to the vest, have you?"

"Are you going to kill me?" the vampire said. Its voice came out as a thin croak.

"If so, I urge you to do it elsewhere," said Vicente Valtieri. "I am an old man, I need my rest, and dust on my belongings annoys me intensely."

"Old man," said the Orc, and snorted. "Right. Thanks, Brother."

He carried the vampire back out the door and closed it behind him. Then he strode back to the bench, removed his shield with his free hand, and plumped the creature down onto it with the other. Orc and vampire surveyed each other in silence for a moment.

"I ought to just kill you," said Gogron.

"Yes," said the vampire.

"I mean, you know where the Sanctuary is, and you're not part of the Brotherhood. Lucien'll probably have an apoplexy if he finds out you've been in here."

"Who?" said the vampire, but the Orc did not seem to be listening.

"But Vicente is always saying Sithis likes vampires," Gogron said. "Creatures of the night and all that."

"Really?" said the vampire, dimly beginning to remember references it had heard to the Dark Brotherhood and the Dark God.

"You ever kill anybody?" said Gogron.

"Yes," said the vampire.

"On purpose?"

"No."

"Think you could do it?"

"I suppose so," said the vampire.

"I guess if I'm wrong, I can always kill you later," the Orc reasoned.

"I'm sure you could," said the vampire.

"So." The Orc sat down on the bench beside the vampire. "What's it going to take for you to live? Assuming you don't want to go on looking like a cinder?"

The vampire looked away.

"Oh," said Gogron. "That. No, blood's not a problem, not here. I'm Gogron gro-Bolmog, by the way. You have a name?"

"Dree," said the vampire.

"Hm." Dree listened to the clank of a pair of gauntlets being set down on the floor. "All right, Dree. Here you go."

Gogron held out one green wrist. It was thicker than Dree's neck. At least one of the dark veins under the surface was as big as the vampire's little finger. The creature was reminded, very abruptly, that it had been very many days and it was very, very thirsty.

"Are you sure?" said Dree.

"I look to you like somebody who is not sure about things?" said the Orc.

"All right," said Dree. The vampire wrapped both small hands around the proferred arm, lowered its head, and fastened its sharp teeth around the largest vein it could see. And drank. The taste was as awful as Dree remembered, like drinking hot rust, but it was thirsty enough not to care. The pain receded, gradually ebbing away as strength returned. All that was burnt began to heal. It was slow at first, then quicker, because life never returned faster than when you took it from someone else -

Dree let go abruptly of the Orc's arm, sitting stiffly on the bench. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Gogron dabbed at the punctures with a rag, then wrapped the fabric a couple of careless turns around his wrist. "Mosquito bites hurt worse than that. And you'll explode like a balloon before you get enough to cause trouble for somebody my size. Don't take it as a standing invite, though. I wake up and see you standing by my bed, I will smash you like a bug before you can say _Sithis. _Understood?"

"Yes," said Dree, licking her teeth. She wondered, now that her capacity for thought was starting to come back, why there was a skeleton in armor limping around the room. Every so often it disappeared behind one of the two stone support pillars, only to come clanking back. It seemed to be holding a silver mace, though its breastplate and boots were rusty steel.

"So you're a Bosmer," said Gogron gro-Bolmog. "And you're a girl. Or something like, anyhow. How old are you?"

"Eighteen and three quarters," said Dree.

"Hm. Well, I guess Antoinetta was younger than that when Lucien first dragged her in here. So Dree'd be short for something-dree-el?"

"Vilendriel," said the vampire. "I like Dree better."

"I can see why," said Gogron. "Well, I'm not going to ask why you jumped down our well. If you want, you can tell me later. First we're going to go talk to Ocheeva."

"Who?" said the vampire Dree.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_A/N: The different proportions of the characters come from the All Shapes and Sizes mod._

Ocheeva rubbed one of her cranial spikes as she sighed. She had been so _sure _that today was going to be a good day. Lucien had just sent her seven new contracts all at once, mostly with the potential to be very lucrative. She had managed to remind Antoinetta Marie of the Tenets apropos of harming her Brothers and Sisters, and thus hopefully averted any future garlic-related cooking disasters. And no one had knocked over the Dark Guardian in days, saving Ocheeva the trouble of piecing the old skeleton back together again. Yes, technically she ought to be able to delegate that chore – preferably to whomever had done the damage to start with – but no one ever seemed to be able to complete it to her satisfaction. Really, it was bizarre how easily how easily the thing could be damaged by accident, given how difficult it was to do on purpose.

And now there was this. The Argonian restrained her tail from twitching only with great difficulty as she looked at Gogron and his so-called new recruit. The little Elf looked more or less like any other young Bosmer, round-faced and pointed of ear. She might be a little paler than usual, perhaps, but that was not surprising. (Ocheeva tried to ignore the red eyes. She had gotten used to Vicente's, but he was not a barely-adult Wood Elf.) In any case, she looked like some kind of pet, standing there in her threadbare robe beside the enormous Orc.

Ocheeva had nothing in particular against Bosmer. Telaendril had been a valued member of her Sanctuary for some years now. Nor had she any problem with vampires, given the frequent and useful participation of Vicente Valtieri. But this...

"We don't do the recruiting, Gogron," Ocheeva said. "You know that responsibility belongs to Lucien LaChance."

"Is that in the Tenets, then?" Gogron asked. He was using his "big stupid Orc" voice again, the one he often used when he knew he was right and Ocheeva was wrong.

"You know full well it's not in the Tenets," Ocheeva snapped. "But it is the way things have always been done. The Night Mother speaks to the Listener, and the Listener to the Speakers, and the Speakers choose our Brothers and Sisters. If you want a god who favors blind chance, worship Sheogorath."

"I don't know from gods," Gogron said. "I just thought, what with her falling down the well and everything, it might be a gift. You know, from the Night Mother. But like you said, I'm not the one she talks to."

Ocheeva glared at the Orc, who now wore an expression of calculated imbecility. Given that she'd just finished arguing against random chance, it would be awkward for her to say the Bosmer's presence was a coincidence, and he knew it.

"I could simply order you to kill her," Ocheeva said. "According to the Tenets, you may not disobey."

"Yeah," Gogron said. He looked her in the eye, which in this case meant tilting his head downwards somewhat. "That's true."

But, Ocheeva recognized silently, that wouldn't stop him from doing any number of things to inconvenience her later. He might be a brute, but Gogron gro-Bolmog was not stupid. If he had been, Lucien would never have recruited him.

"Besides," Ocheeva said aloud. "What could I possibly tell Lucien?"

"I have an idea about that," Gogron said. "I figured I could take her with me on my next contract, she could kill somebody, and then if she's right for a Sister, he'll know. He always knows."

Ocheeva tugged on her spine-rings, considering this. It sounded like an excellent solution to the problem, if not exactly for the reasons Gogron presented.

"What do you say to that?" Ocheeva said at last, turning to the Bosmer. "Are you willing to kill in cold blood?"

"Yes," said the vampire. "I think so."

"Hmph. You'll need to be a little more certain than that," Ocheeva said. "But she'll have to earn her armor, Gogron. You're responsible for outfitting her. And if I have the slightest suspicion she is feeding on any Brother or Sister here..."

"Not to worry," Gogron said. "I got enough to spare for her. She doesn't need much."

"If you say so," Ocheeva said. "Oh, and about speaking of contracts, I have one for you right now."

---

"That went about like I thought it would," said Gogron gro-Bolmog. Dree pushed her short hair behind her long ears. It was still yellowish. Too bad her eyes would never be the same.

"I didn't think she would agree," Dree said. She followed the Orc through a set of heavy wooden doors and down some stairs. Something coarse and hairy brushed past her ankle. "Was that a really big rat?"

"That's Schemer. He lives here." Gogron stumped down a set of steps into a smaller room, spartanly furnished with tables, crates, and shelves. "And Ocheeva thinks I'm going to hack you into messes," Gogron said. "Otherwise she wouldn't have. Mind if I eat?"

"No, of course not. _Are _you going to hack me into messes?" said Dree.

Gogron shrugged his massive shoulders as he rummaged through the cupboard. "Depends on you," he said. "See, I didn't get here by accident. None of us did."

"You had to kill somebody, right?" Dree said.

"Right. And I know you're thinking it, so I'll tell you. Let's see." Gogron held up his gauntleted fists and counted off on his fingers. "My father. My mother. Both of my brothers. My uncle. Two of my uncle's hired hands. Also, near as I could tell afterwards, all of my uncle's dogs, horses, and anything else that was alive and moving."

"You went berserk?" Dree said.

"Sort of," Gogron said. He came over to the table with his arms full and began spreading out bread, meat, and vegetables over the table surface, ignoring the plates. "From what I hear about Orc berserking, you're supposed to still know what's going on. I don't remember a thing between when my father started beating me for about the hundredth time and when I woke up in the middle of a cornfield with blood all over me. But all of those people I mentioned were armed, and I wasn't. The law didn't believe I could have killed them all by myself, even as big as I already was. Lucien LaChance came along that night after I finished burying everybody. I figured I was probably going to do it again anyhow, so I might as well get paid."

Dree added two and two together and came up with the requisite number. Written in blood. _Mine. _"So the Argonian – what was her name?"

"Ocheeva," Gogron said. He slid off his gauntlets, picked up an apple, and delicately removed the stem. Then he put the entire thing into his mouth.

"She thinks that when we go on this contract, you'll go crazy and kill me along with everyone else?" Dree said, raising her voice to be heard over the Orc's jaws working.

Gogron swallowed. "I think so," he said. "Normally we work alone, so it was never a problem before. I'd sneak in somewhere, kill everything, and then whenever I snapped out of it, I'd sneak out. Near as I can figure out, I'm not _loud _when it happens, I'm just really, really angry."

"I think I understand," Dree said. "Your plan is that I go with you, try to stay out of your way, and try and kill someone before there's no one left."

"That's the plan," Gogron said. He reached for a loaf of bread. "You heard the contract. It's not a bad start, if you can stomach it. Once I get going, you ought to be able to catch one or two trying to get away."

"I don't have any reason to like necromancers," Dree said.

"It's more than that," Gogron said. He picked up a knife and began sawing at the hard loaf. "I'll warn you now. If you think you're going to freeze up, don't go. You'll just get killed."

"I won't freeze," Dree said. "I've had people try to kill me before." _Pretty much all the time, since I turned into what I am now._

"Good," Gogron said. He took a drink of ale. Dree, watching with something like awe, watched him put away another pound or so of meat in a matter of seconds. He wasn't a rude or messy eater, but he did seem to believe in quantity. Of course, she _had _removed a couple of pints of his blood earlier.

"So how are you at making yourself invisible?" Gogron said eventually.

"I can blend in really well," Dree said. "It's always worked so far." It was too bad she'd forgotten to do it when she was trying to pick the basement lock of the house where the guard had caught her. She'd been very thirsty, and in pain, and it had slipped her mind. _I won't let it happen again._

"How about shooting? Any good with a bow?"

Dree stared at him. "I'm still a Bosmer, you know," she said.

"Fine, I'll get you a bow. Lots of Wood Elves around Cheydinhal. It shouldn't be too hard to find some lightweight armor in a real small size."

"Gogron," Dree said. "Why are you doing this?"

The Orc paused with a cup halfway to his mouth. He set it down and looked at her for a few seconds without saying anything. Then he said, "It's really going to annoy somebody I want to annoy. Let's leave it at that, Huh? You should be all right here until I get back. Ocheeva will make sure nobody bothers you. She's strict about anything happening in the Sanctuary."

---

Dree watched with something akin to dread as Gogron left. He was frightening, but he hadn't tried to hurt her, which was more than she could say for ninety percent of the people she had met since she had caught the porphyry. _And about fifty percent of the all the people I've met in my entire life, counting the vampire I never saw, _Dree thought glumly. She padded back to the living quarters as quietly as possible. Her fabric shoes were so worn she could feel every individual stone in the floor. If she listened, she could hear hearts beating, but she was trying really hard not to notice that.

Dree seized one handle of the huge doors and hauled back, then twitched backward as the door flew open. The tawny Khajiit she had seen earlier stalked out of the doorway, and they stood eye to eye. Well, not eye to eye _exactly. _He was a good six inches taller than Dree, which would make him about a foot shorter than Gogron. Now that she could see all of him, he looked thinner than she had expected. The magicka that reeked from his robe was tangible, an almost-audible crackle in the air.

"Are you M'raaj-Dar?" Dree said.

The Khajiit inspected her through narrowed eyes. His ears were flat. "Who are you? And what is an unnecessary small Bosmer doing here obstructing the walkway of those with legitimate purpose?"

"I'm Dree," she said. "Actually, we met earlier." She grinned hopefully, then realized too late that this meant showing her sharp teeth.

"Oh. Gogron's vampire." The Khajiit's ears rose to something approximating half-mast. Dree received the strong impression they spent a lot of time that way. "Then get out of the way, little biting creature. This one has work to do."

Dree moved out of the way and watched the Khajiit pass. He did not give her a second glance. _He doesn't walk like a mage. He walks like a thief, _Dree thought. Her experience of assassins was very limited up until now, but her experience of thieves was comprehensive. What she saw was the arrogant tread of one who owns all he surveys, but also makes very little sound, in case the people who _think _they own what he is surveying are still within earshot.

_I really am in a Dark Brotherhood sanctuary, _Dree thought, and crept back into the living quarters and closed the door, very quietly. It had been a long few days, and a terrifying morning, and more than anything, she wanted to curl up and just be somewhere else for a while. She went past the table and the cupboards and peered around a support column at the beds. There were several of them, but it wasn't hard to tell which one was Gogron's. It had a huge indentation in the middle of the mattress. Dree stood and looked at it for a while. She thought about the torches, and how much they reminded her of sunlight, and how quietly everyone around here seemed to walk.

Then she went and crawled _under _the bed.

_I'll wake up as soon as Gogron comes back, _she thought. Then she blew out the light inside, and for a while there was nothing at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Dree woke suddenly, staring at a pair of boots. Vampires do not wake up gradually, as living people do; partly this is because for them the difference is nearer that between _animate _and _dead _than _asleep _and _awake. _So Dree awoke entirely lucid, and her first thought was: _Wrong boots. _They were leather, and just about large enough to belong to a small man. While she was pondering this, a voice from somewhere above her said:

"You'll never pass for a Bosmer if you sleep on floors, you know. It will leave you cold as a stone."

Dree scooted out the opposite side of the bed. She stood up and found herself facing Vicente Valtieri across the neatly folded blanket.

"I am a Bosmer," she said.

"No. You are a vampire," said Valtieri. He frowned as he looked at her, causing much rearrangement among the taut lines on his face. She tried, for the second time, to ignore the uncomfortable sensation that her skin was transparent. "How long ago were you bitten?" he said abruptly.

"About two weeks," Dree said. "I think. I don't remember all of it."

"Two weeks," Valtieri repeated. "Well, well. You will, I hope, forgive my failure to recognize you this morning. Feeding agrees with you, as it does with all of us."

"I don't remember ever seeing you before today," Dree said.

"That, my child, is because you did not see me," said Vicente Valtieri. "It seems I am grown somewhat more contagious in my old age. But then, you are small even for your race, and the nearer death one leaves a victim, the greater the likelihood that the porphyry will be passed on."

Dree stared at the old vampire for a moment in incomprehension, and then understanding woke rage. She could not speak at all for almost a full minute. Valtieri waited, watching with unblinking red eyes.

"_You _did this," she managed finally. "You bit me and just left me lying on the ground? And you _knew _I was going to turn into a monster?"

"Oh, no, I assure you," said Vicente Valtieri. "I had no idea other than slaking my thirst at the time. I left you there because that was where I found you. And the last person on whom I fed did not change. In retrospect, I now suspect this may be because I killed him afterwards. It was a contract, you see."

Dree looked at him in silence. He looked back with no sign of remorse. Neither of them breathed (of course), and in the quiet room the tick of the rat's claws seemed unnaturally loud.

"I'm going to kill you," Dree said.

"Perhaps," said Vicente Valtieri. The idea did not seem to cause him much anxiety. "But it won't be today. The last person from whom I drank was you. Perhaps you are not yet familiar with the paradox of our strengths, but I assure you I have grown stronger in the interim, not weaker. You, however, have just fed, and I doubt seriously whether you could now repeat your destruction of our lock."

_Gogron. _Dree blinked as her thoughts shot down another track. "Am _I _contagious?" she said.

"Ah, now there you have hit upon the reason for my disturbing you this evening," said Valtieri. "I remind you that porphyric hemophilia is entirely curable if it is treated within the first three days. I suggest you speak to Gogron along these lines very soon."

"You never bothered to tell me that when you infected me," Dree said. "Why do you care?"

"Because he doesn't want me to be a vampire," said Gogron's voice. The Orc detached himself from the shadow of a pillar and came forward. His footsteps were heavy now, but Dree had not heard him come in. Torchlight gleamed on the large expanse of his elaborately patterned breastplate, and also on the top of his shiny green head. It was unclear whether it was bald or shaved, but he seemed to have shoulder-length hair that started somewhere around ear level.

"Vicente here figures only special people should get to join his club," Gogron said.

"Say, rather, that I would prefer to think of you and the Dark Gift as traveling along parallel lines that, by the will of Sithis, will never intersect," Valtieri said mildly. "Among other things, I suspect the Sanctuary would be inconvenienced by the presence of a vampire incapable of taking in less than a gallon at a time."

Dree looked from one to the other. Gogron grinned. "You have your drinking habits, I have mine," he said. "But not to worry. I was born under the Ritual. I don't catch stuff easily."

"Oh, is that so?" Valtieri raised an eyebrow. "In that case, can you spare a pint for a thirsty old man?"

"Sorry," Gogron said blandly. "I am a one-vampire Orc."

"This sudden interest in taking on a protegee is rather puzzling in you," Vicente said. "I suggest you take care. Any offspring of mine is not to be trusted." He inclined his head politely toward the Orc, then toward Dree. "If you have any questions about your new gifts, my child, it will be my privilege to answer them. Until you kill me, that is. Good evening."

"Evening," Gogron said. He watched the vampire until he was out of the room, then went to retrieve a sack from beside the pillar. "That why you're here, Dree? After Vicente?"

"So you didn't hear all of that," Dree said.

"Nope. I just came in." He brought the sack over to the bed and began removing things from it. Dree watched him. _Gogron's not afraid of _him, she thought, and felt a little calmer. It would have been slightly more reassuring if her heartbeat had slowed down, but she didn't have one any more. There was no flush to betray her, no harsher breath, only the tightness in her neck and the slow burn inside.

"I thought it was just a well," Dree said. "I didn't know it was _him _until he told me."

"So you didn't plan on being a vampire," Gogron said.

"Of course not. Who would?" Dree said.

Gogron paused in what he was doing and straightened up to look down at her. After a second he said, "Hm," and turned to survey the bed again. "Maybe you don't know it, but people have offered him money for it before."

"They don't know," Dree said. "They can't."

"Oh, I think Antoinetta knows. But he told her no. Said a religious fanatic shouldn't be a vampire, even one crazy for Sithis. All right, look here." Gogron gestured at the bed. "Hopefully it'll fit. First I figured we'd start you out on leather 'cause it's nice and light, but then I found this."

Dree turned her attention to the objects on the bed. There was a plain steel bow and a matching quiver of arrows. A steel dagger lay beside them, glinting reassuringly in the dim. Beside the dagger lay a shirt and trousers that seemed to be brown linen, and a pair of soft boots. And, lying spread out by itself at one end of the bed, there was a robe. It was gray and plain, but when she moved her head, it changed with the light, sometimes black, sometimes brown.

"Will that fit over these?" she said.

"Yep," Gogron said. "It's magic, almost as good as armor. You'll be able to go out in the sun, too."

"Wearing a hood doesn't work," Dree said. "I tried it. The light burns right through."

"Not through this," Gogron said. "That's what I bought it for. Well, that and it'll make it easier for you to blend in. Won't show stains, either."

Dree raised her eyebrows as she fingered the fabric. It felt softer than it looked. She ventured a sidelong glance at Gogron. "You worry a lot about stains, Gogron?"

The Orc chuckled deep in his chest. "Nothing sticks to dwarf-made armor. Part of the reason I wear it. It sure as Oblivion is no good for stealth."

Dree stared down at the bed. He'd found a belt somewhere, too, and a purse, and by the way it was lying she could tell it wasn't empty. _Why? _she asked herself, not for the first nor the second time. It was a question worth remembering. She already felt a sort of wary hatred of Vicente Valtieri, but he had raised a good point. It seemed very unlikely that an assassin who admitted to being a ravening berserk would take up with her from altruistic motives. And the contract would take them far from any living people, other than the intended victims. _But then, what's he going to do out there that he can't do in a Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, really?_

"Thank you," she said at last. "I don't know what else to say."

"You may change your mind tomorrow," Gogron said. "Now collect your gear and go find someplace to change. We're starting tonight, and it's a long ride."

"Ride?" said Dree.

---

"Vampires ever get sore?" Gogron said.

"I hope not," Dree said. "I never rode a horse before." She sat pillion behind the Orc, clinging for dear life, and this was made more awkward by the fact that the horse was so enormous her feet practically stuck straight out.

"You're not going to fall off," Gogron said.

"How do you know?" Dree said.

"Because you're denting my armor. Ease up, will you? I thought Bosmer liked animals."

"You don't see horses roaming around the woods very much," Dree said, reluctantly loosening her grip a little. "Besides, I haven't seen Valenwood since I was five."

"I had you figured for city-bred," Gogron said. "Telaendril talks differently." It was a moonless night, but Dree could see, if she cared to look around. She could, if she wished, hear the heartbeats of the horse, and a passing deer, and small creatures in the grass, though the ponderous _thud _of Gogron's pulse tended to drown those out. Mostly she preferred to stare at Gogron's back and try to ignore the constant up-and-down motion of the horse trotting through the tall grass. They'd left Cheydinhal heading west, but that was all she knew.

"Who's that?" Dree said. "Didn't you say something about her... Um... Before?"

"When I found you? Yes." Gogron was wearing a pointed dwarven helmet now, and even with the visor up it gave his voice a tinny echo. "I guess you'll find out sooner or later. Telaendril and I had a thing going for a little while. Didn't last long."

"Oh," Dree said. _And it didn't end well, either, if you thought she'd leave dead people around for you to find._

"I sort of broke some of her ribs. By accident."

"I don't want to know," Dree said.

"I wasn't going to tell you," Gogron said. "Besides, it couldn't have worked."

"Because she's a Bosmer and you're an Orc?"

"Because she's a sniper and I'm what I am," Gogron said dryly. "If race was going to be a problem, I wouldn't be riding through the wilderness with a Bosmer _and _a vampire."

"I guess not," Dree said.

"Is it going to be a problem for you?" Gogron said. "'Cause if you're in the position of taking any port in a storm and you have a thing about Orcs - "

"No," Dree said. "I have a thing about vampires."

"You _are _a vampire."

"And that's why," Dree said.

"Hm." They rode on for a while. The terrain seemed to be accelerating on its way past, Dree noticed. She risked a glance downward. There seemed to be stones skimming by under the horse's hooves, but the view was so disconcerting that she tightened her grip again, and this time she felt the armor start to deform under her fingers.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't used to be able to do that."

"You'll get used to it," Gogron said. "Vicente can hold a really fragile glass even when he's mad, and I've seen him plenty mad. Speaking of which, will you listen to a friendly warning?"

"I've known you for less than twenty-four hours," Dree said. "But I'll listen."

"Think hard and long before you try anything there. Lots of Undead are plenty strong. Valtieri didn't get that old by being stupid, and now he'll be keeping an eye on you."

"I'm not stupid, either," Dree said.

"Good."

More landscape sped past. They seemed to be traveling uphill now, into rockier country.

"Are we getting close?" Dree said.

"We're about halfway. I figure we'll get there about sunrise. Give you a chance to try out your new hood while we make sure everybody's accounted for, and if it doesn't keep the sun off like it's supposed to, we'll just head straight in. Even necromancers won't be able to set up much in the way of traps in a natural cave."

"Oh, good," Dree said.

---

They did come to the cave at sunrise. Dree pulled her hood up as soon as she felt the first twinge, but that was all that happened. She had to squint in the bright sunlight, because her eyes were more sensitive than before, but her skin did not burn.

"It's working," she said, very quietly. Gogron finished tethering the horse behind a convenient bush with small white flowers.

"I figured it would," Gogron said. "Let's stay here for a while, see if we see anyone moving around."

They stood still for a while. Dree listened to the Orc and the horse breathing. It was beginning to strike her, now that the constant terror of that first two weeks had lost its grip, how very _loud _living things were. Hearts and lungs and, in the horse's case, digestion would give away even the stealthiest creature to _her _kind of ears. But it wasn't just that. If she concentrated, she could see their outlines in front of her eyes. It was very faint in the sunlight, but in the distance she could see a blue glow limning a wolf, and a browsing rabbit, and a stumbling manlike shape that seemed to be lacking one arm or any clothes. Dree blinked, and looked again. Sure enough, there it was. There might be something behind it, but it was hard to tell. _But he isn't breathing and he has no hearbeat, or I would hear it._

She laid a hand on Gogron's forearm. He nodded, but held up one gauntlet: _be still. _Dree waited obediently, still watching. Whatever-it-was staggered closer, and now she _did _hear a heartbeat, but it wasn't the creature's. Someone else was walking behind it, cursing occasionally as they stumbled through the tall grass.

"Come _back _here, curse you, there's nothing to kill over there! If you give Beneldren a disease he'll have my head!"

The zombie did not appear to be listening. Dree became aware that it seemed to be moving in their direction. She reached up and drew an arrow, very quietly, from her quiver. Then the creature vanished in a puff of gold sparks.

"Finally," muttered the black-robed Breton who was now mere yards from them. "A plague upon all conjurations and _especially _upon zombies. Why did I ever..." The voice trailed off as the mage stomped into the cave and slammed the door behind him. Gogron and Dree waited a few more minutes, but nothing happened. Birds sang nearby under the cover of the trees.

"They'll be waiting for night before they come out again," Gogron said quietly. "You follow me in and cover the door, understand? Stay right by it. You see anybody coming, kill them however you can. You see me coming, and I'm in my right mind, I'll sing out. Otherwise, stay invisible and I probably won't know you're there."

"What about the horse?" Dree said.

Gogron shrugged. "I'll buy another one if I have to. Usually I run out of steam before that."

With these not-overly-reassuring words, he reached back and drew the axe from its harness across his back. The black metal glowed faintly red at the edges, or perhaps that was Dree's imagination. Dree followed him into the cave, trying to think invisible thoughts and hoping her magicka would last. She closed the door behind her without making a sound.

It was darker inside, and cooler. Dree heaved a silent sigh of relief as her eyes readjusted from the painful sunlight to the restful dim. She stood in a narrow passage with irregular rock walls, and a faint yellow light diffused through from the door behind her. It gleamed gold on the curlicues on Gogron's armor as he stalked off down the passage, axe in both hands. A moment later, he vanished around the corner, but Dree could still see him. The blue glow was much stronger in the dark. In fact, if she concentrated, she could see others as well, though there were walls between her and them. The largest was still much smaller than Gogron. _Men and mer. _She counted silently. _Ten of them. Everyone's here, then._

She wondered if anyone would even try to run away. If all of them were conjurers, like the man she'd seen, they could easily double their numbers and keep on summoning until they had an army against one Orc. _He must have thought of that, _Dree told herself. _He does this for a living._ Even to herself, she didn't sound completely convinced. Gogron's assurance couldn't bolster her when she was alone with the deadly sun at her back and something moaning off in the distance. She held up her own hand in front of her face. It was transparent, showing only the very faint edges. _That's working, at least._

Dree watched very closely as the big blue glow that was Gogron converged with the first small blue glow that was a necromancer. Sure enough, she heard a distant _whoosh _and a hiss, and then there was a hovering sort of blob between them. _A ghost. _The tactic must have failed, however, because the big blue glow apparently ploughed right into both of the others, and Dree heard a very brief scream. (The echoes were strange, inside the cave.) Then one vanished, the other blinked out, and Gogron kept right on going. In fact, he sped up, racing for the next amorphous man-shaped blob. This necromancer shouted an alarm, and the others quickly converged on his location.

A lot of things happened very quickly, and it was hard to follow. There was much noise of hissing and moaning and the occasional trailing shriek. Blue blobs appeared and disappeared and moved around each other, and Dree couldn't tell what was really going on, except that Gogron must still be alive, or all this activity surely would not keep going on. _Right? _

Then one shape detached itself from the mass and sped away. Dree became aware, after a moment, that it seemed to be retracing the Orc's path into the cave. _Which means he'll be here any second. _In fact, she could hear footsteps, and a frantically pounding heart, as the man drew closer. _It's too close in here to shoot him, and besides, he'd probably fry me with a spell. _She drew her dagger instead.

One part of the plan failed almost at once, because the necromancer saw her the instant he rounded the corner.

"Who's there?" he demanded, and then a blast of fire shot from his hands, and Dree had to throw herself sideways to keep from being incinerated. It seemed she had been lucky, however, or that the Dark God did indeed favor vampires, because then the necromancer drew a dagger very like hers and charged forward. This was not necessarily a good thing, because Dree knew approximately as much about knife fighting in close quarters as she did about riding a horse, but it was better than being scorched to death.

She was lucky again. Neither did the necromancer. He ran up to her holding the dagger up over his head in both hands, shouting something inarticulate. Dree waited until he got close, dodged out of the way, and stabbed him in the back. It worked better than it probably should have, because Dree the new vampire was much faster than Dree the young Bosmer. The trouble was that no amount of supernatural speed could give her more familiarity with anatomy. She missed his heart. Instead of falling down dead the way she expected, the necromancer spun around and she lost her grip. He slashed blindly at her, and this time it was unexpected enough that she barely moved in time. He slashed again, his breath gurgling in his chest, and she could _smell _the blood running from his wound and from his open mouth. This time she grabbed his knife arm and gave it an unscientific yank, and then she caught the knife as he dropped it.

_I shouldn't have been able to do that, _she thought again, and then she stabbed him. This time she must have done it right, because the man gave a rattling gasp and collapsed onto his side. Dree stepped back as he fell. Blood spurted around the dagger once, then stopped as his heart finally gave up.

Dree stood there for a moment, looking at the body. He was dead. There was no question. But he was still bleeding, although with no pulse he was doing it very slowly, and she was loathe to touch either of the knives with blood on them. She had a horrible suspicion she would be tempted to lick it off, and then she would have no choice but to open the cave door and hurl herself out into the sun. She turned to look back down into the cave. All sound seemed to have died down, and she saw only one light below her. _Gogron? _It had to be, unless it was three necromancers all standing right next to each other. Dree watched for a few moments more. The glow did not move. _It has to be, _she thought, and turned to descend into the cave.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Dree stopped just before the doorway to the first chamber to listen. Water ran somewhere else in the cave, but that seemed to be all. There was no moaning, or shrieking, or footsteps, or organs working, though those would have been hard to hear over the water. At least, Dree told herself so. She was beginning to suspect no sound could drown out a beating heart as far as she was concerned.

She was in the process of having this thought when the smell hit. She no longer breathed unless she was talking, but air would work its way into her nostrils eventually just the same. _Well, now I know I can't throw up either, _Dree thought. _And whoever was in there is definitely dead. _There was no mistaking the smell of fresh blood, but it was mixed with the excremental stench of death and the sickly sweet reek of rotting meat. She stood for a long time before she could force herself to walk inside.

The room was not very large, and the strong mixture of odors made it seem crowded. There were tables lining the walls, and some of them had alchemy equipment, and some had bones. Some had other things at which Dree was not inclined to look very closely, because that was where the rotting-meat smell seemed to come from. She looked around for the necromancer, trying not to dread what she was about to see.

The body lay in the center of the room. _He ran away from the table he was working at, and Gogron met him here. _The middle-aged Breton was undoubtedly dead. Very definitively so. _At least, I hope to never see a living man with his head five feet from his body. _The intervening space seemed to be splattered in drying blood, and a very large pool had spread out around the body. Dree stared at it for a moment. It was easy to forget how _much _blood a body could hold. People like Vicente would talk about it as though an entire person needed only enough blood to fill a wine bottle.

Dree shook herself, and went around. The passage to the next room was narrow, and it wound back and forth several times before she stepped out into a larger chamber. The sound of rushing water was louder here – a narrow channel ran ran from one wall to the other, carrying a swift stream. Dree had thought the previous dead man had prepared her for what she was about to see. This turned out to be exactly wrong.

_White hands reaching up from a steaming pool of blood, pulling her under - _

Dree jerked, and the vision faded. She pulled back into the passage for a moment, closing her eyes. _It wasn't real. It wasn't real. _

She turned, very slowly, and looked at the cavern again. Someone might be able to count eight necromancers here, but it would take some time, and also some totaling up of what body parts belonged to whom. It is conceivably possible to kill someone neatly with a sharp sword or a dagger, but it simply cannot be done with an axe. Gogron hadn't even tried. Some of the bodies looked as though he had kept on hacking at them after they fell. _Until they stopped twitching, _Dree thought. At least three of them were women, and two were Altmer. It was too hard to tell about the others. The blood pool here was dozens of feet wide, soaking the bedrolls that neatly lined one wall and turning the hair and garments of the dead into an awful, sodden mess. The stream was clear until it reached the center of the room, where a crude arch of stone bridged it. From there until it vanished under the cave wall, it was dark red.

Dree tried not to think about the smell. Gogron sat against the opposite wall, slumped sideways against a large rock. If she worked at it, she could make the blue glow go away, could see him in very good detail even in the dark. His helmet lay on the ground beside him, dropped or removed, there was no way to tell. Small puddles of blood lay here and there around him, though his armor looked clean. His face was turned half away. The eye she could see was closed, his heavy jaw slack.

"Gogron?" Dree said. He did not stir. She tried again, raised her voice to be heard above the stream. Nothing. _I know he's alive, or he wouldn't be glowing. Besides, I can still hear him breathe. Slowly, maybe. So he's not faking it. He's not going to jump up and hack me to pieces with that axe, _Dree told herself. The axe lay next to the helmet. It was no longer possible to tell what it had originally looked like. It was completely coated with _stop saying that word, curse you_. Dree edged carefully forward. Nothing moved. The smell showed no sign of abating, and if it was possible to get used to the scent of death and – _don't say it again - _it wasn't happening yet. _White hands reaching - _

"No," Dree said out loud, but the water drowned her out. She walked quickly forward, stumbling in sudden weakness, but managed to steer around the biggest part of the mess. She crossed the bridge without falling off, which was good, because she could not stand the thought of being carried downstream into the red water. "No," she said again, and made it to the rock and fell to her knees. She could hear Gogron's heart beating now, driving the _blood no don't say it _through the vessels, and she was very thirsty and the white hands kept trying to seize her and pull her under, and if that happened she would never rise again. "_No."_

She turned her back to him, and edged over to the other side of the rock, and put out the lights. Everything, mercifully, shut itself off.

---

Dree's eyes snapped open at the sound of someone saying her name. Gogron was kneeling beside her, looming in the dark. _Thud-thud. Thud-thud. _Dree ignored the sound pointedly, but the awful images seemed to be keeping their distance for now.

"You all right?" Gogron said. He sounded a little tired, but entirely calm.

"How long has it been?" Dree said as she sat up. _Thirty hours since the last time, _said a very strict internal clock, the same one that kept insisting her throat was dry. _Shut up, you, _she told it.

"Not sure," Gogron said. "I tend to lose track." He must have cleaned himself off before he woke her. The axe was strapped to his back again. It gleamed faintly red over his shoulder, but it was a magicka red, a bound spell red.

"Can we leave?" Dree said.

"Sure. I've already been through and there's nothing worth taking with us. I've already got a better mortar and pestle than these idiots were using."

"You searched the bodies?" Dree said as she got up. She did not look at the area where the bodies were. The smell was, if anything, worse.

"Not to worry, I washed up afterwards," Gogron said, rubbing the top of his head. He seemed to have a couple of small scratches, but he could have gotten those from the cavern wall.

"Oh, _good_," Dree said.

"It's important, you know. Necromancers handle dead bodies all the time. You never know what they might have." Gogron turned to cross the bridge. "Are you sick?"

"No," Dree said. "I'm fairly sure the only reason I didn't throw up is because I can't, though."

"Only it's dark in here, so I can't tell so much, but you're looking a little. Ah. Peaked."

Dree raised a hand to her face. She could feel lines where lines had not been before, and she immediately remembered what Vicente Valtieri had said: _Perhaps you are not familiar with the paradox of our strengths... _She didn't feel stronger than before. But then, she hadn't felt stronger than when she was a Bosmer in the instant when she broke the lock on that well, either.

"I thought I told you to stay up top," Gogron said.

"I'd have to see all this sooner or later," Dree said.

Gogron raised a dark eyebrow. "I figured you could take that, or I wouldn't have brought you. The problem is that I'm not sure even a vampire could hold me off if you'd come too soon. That's why I told you to stay there."

"You didn't move for a long time," Dree said. "And I could tell everyone else was dead."

"Yeah? How?" Gogron said.

"Things that are alive look blue. They glow. I can turn it on and off, but when it's on, I can see it even through the walls. Actually things that aren't alive, too. Ghosts. Zombies. Things that move on their own." They were coming to the necromancer she had killed. Apparently Gogron hadn't come up this far, because the daggers were still very visibly stuck in the body.

"Ah, so one did get by me," Gogron said. He paused to inspect the body with clinical interest. "You shouldn't leave the knife in the body next time. Never leave anything of yours behind."

"I'm sorry," Dree said. "Next time I won't." She steeled herself and reached for the dagger in back, the dagger that was hers. _It's all congealed. I can handle it, _she told herself firmly.

"It's all right this time," Gogron said. "I found you a better one."

Dree straightened, trying not to look relieved. "You did?"

"Yeah. The old Altmer down there had it." Gogron pulled a leather sheath out of his belt and handed it to her. Dree accepted it gingerly. It seemed heavier than the one in which she had kept the steel dagger. She unsheathed the weapon and looked at it. This was another dagger, but it was thinner, the blade slightly curved. The handle was carved with symbols she could not read, and as she tilted it to and fro a green glow crawled over the surface.

"I don't know what it does, but I figured you could test it on the dummy back at the Sanctuary," Gogron said.

"Thank you, Gogron," Dree said.

Gogron shrugged. "I can't use it anyway, unless I want to hold it with two fingers. Better put your hood up. It's probably still day." Dree obediently pulled the hood up over her head as he reached for the wooden door. Light streamed in. Gogron grunted as he looked out. "Hm. The horse is still there, anyway. I knew it was worth it to bring that picket – Dree?"

Dree had moved faster than she had previously thought possible, darting back down into the dark hall. Even in the shadow, she felt steam rising from her burning skin, her entire body roasting as if over an open flame. "Close the door! Please!"

The light vanished. Dree stuck her head cautiously around the corner. The door was closed, and Gogron stood with his back against it.

"I don't know what happened," Dree said. She made a determined effort to keep her voice steady, though she now ached all over. "I had the hood up."

"Let's have a look," Gogron said. His voice was entirely calm, reassuring. Dree came forward slowly. Gogron reached out to finger the fabric of the hood next to her face, turning it to and fro. "It's still turning color like it's supposed to, so the enchantment's still good. I wonder what the problem is?"

"Nothing's different than when we got here except... Oh." _Except for the bad dreams. _If she thought very hard she could remember something like that vision of white hands. _Back from the day after I first started to change, and I hadn't drunk from anyone. _She'd gone to a lot of trouble not to remember that, too. Here, in the dark, was a very bad place to be thinking of it.

"Except what?" said Gogron.

"It's been thirty hours since I drank," Dree said. "That's why my face is changing."

"Oh, right," Gogron said. "I've heard Valtieri say he used to vary like that." He pulled off one gauntlet. "So you get more sensitive after a day or so. We'll just have to make sure you don't have to wait that long." He offered her his wrist. Dree did not hesitate this time, eager to get it over with as quickly as possible. It still tasted terrible, but she felt herself heal.

"That's better," Gogron said, peering under the hood at her as he dabbed a sticking plaster onto his wrist. _He was prepared this time, _Dree noted silently. "I've got a flask here. Want something to get rid of the taste?"

"How did you know?" Dree said, gratefully accepting the metal container. She took a sip and swilled it around inside her mouth, scorching away the taste with the alcohol. She'd only tried liquor once or twice. At the time, she'd thought it was the worst thing she'd ever tasted. This seemed ridiculous, in retrospect.

"You were wrinkling your nose the whole time," Gogron said. "One of the funniest things I ever saw." He accepted the flask back and replaced it somewhere on his armor. "Let's try this sun thing one more time."

The hood worked. A few moments later, they were riding back toward Cheydinhal.

"So we just leave them all there?" Dree said eventually. "That's all right?"

"We're assassins," Gogron said, after a brief pause for chewing. He had been eating out of a sack tied to the saddle horn every since they left the cave. "Cleaning up is a lawman's job. Besides, I doubt anybody's going to go looking for a bunch of necromancers except for the same reason we were."

"So who hired us?" Dree said. "Or aren't we supposed to know?"

"Mostly we don't," Gogron said. "That's Ocheeva's job, or sometimes Valtieri's if we have a new recruit, but we haven't seen one in a while. Ocheeva thinks she and Lucian are bosom buddies, but I'm starting to think he's sending them to other Sanctuaries on purpose."

"Why would he do that?" Dree said.

"Beats me. I'm just a dumb Orc," Gogron said placidly. "Maybe it's part of the Night Mother's plan. That's another thing I let everybody else worry about. Antoinetta does enough of it for at least two people, so I figure it evens out."

"Dumb Orc," Dree said. "Sure." Hacking people into bits wasn't a smart person's kind of job, or maybe even a sane one's, but he had remembered the sticking plaster. And the food, and the water he was drinking. He'd known where to find a hood for her, too.

"At least now you can see why I'd want somebody else there," Gogron said.

"Not enough holes in your wrists?" Dree said.

Gogron snorted. "Very funny. If you hadn't caught that necromancer, he'd probably have gotten away. It's happened before. Then I woke up half dead and had to go chasing somebody all over the landscape, trying to get to them before they got to the law. I'd have all kinds of bounty on my head if it wasn't for that cursed ugly helmet. Wouldn't recognize your own mother in one of these things." He tapped a finger on the helmet where it hung from the saddle. It clanked obligingly.

"I wouldn't recognize her anyway, by now," Dree said. "She sold me for some skooma when I was eight."

"Sold as in slave?" Gogron said.

"We were in Morrowind," Dree said.

"And you ran away," Gogron said.

"That's right."

"How'd you get the bracers off?" Gogron said.

"With sload soap," Dree said. "They were a little big, anyway. And then I wandered around for a while trying not to starve to death, and I hitched a ride on the top of somebody's carriage, and I ended up in Cheydinhal."

"And then you fell foul of Vicente," Gogron said.

"I am going to kill him," Dree said, but it lacked conviction.

"Mm hmm," said Gogron gro-Bolmog.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Gogron said very little for the remaining hours of the ride. Dree began to suspect, as time went on, that he had not escaped injury as completely as she'd thought. She still tightened her grip involuntarily when the horse jumped, and the Orc tended to twitch when they landed, as if it hurt. At least he wasn't bleeding. She was sure, with the grim certainty that was growing on her more and more, that she would be able to tell.

_I still don't get him._ Given where she'd met him and what he'd done, his behavior toward her seemed unreal. _He kills people for a living, and he's so thorough at it that you can barely recognize them afterwards, and he offered the blood from his veins to a complete stranger. _And when he'd mentioned that he'd had a relationship with a Bosmer before, it was only natural that she suspect his motives, riding out here in the middle of nowhere. Her experience of the opposite sex quite naturally consisted of a hard-learned knowledge that you didn't go places with them alone, you didn't let them get you behind a locked door they had the key to, and sometimes you just had to kick them really hard and dive out the window and run. It didn't matter how kind they seemed. Seeming was easy.

So far, Gogron gro-Bolmog seemed to be going out of his way to prove her wrong. _He keeps treating me like... Like just somebody he knows, like the Khajiit or Ocheeva. _Maybe he was really off Bosmer for the present. Or maybe it was just the other side of the coin. Maybe if you spent part of your time in that infernal rage where you knew nothing and no one except as something to kill, you were just really easygoing the rest of the time. You could never really trust someone like that, Dree told herself, with the inborn pessimism born of a short life with overmuch experience in it. You'd always wonder when you were going to do something to set them off.

The day went on, and wore away as the Orc and the vampire rode up to the walls of Cheydinhal. They left the horse at a livery stable. Gogron slung the saddlebags up over one shoulder, and they walked in through the city gate.

"Evening, Brendal," Gogron said as they passed one of the guards. The man turned to look at them, revealing himself to be a stocky Imperial.

"Who's that? Oh, Gogron, it's you. Been out for a ride?"

"Yep," Gogron said. "How about yourself?"

The guard made a _pshh _noise. "I wish. Been stuck inside these walls for months now. I'm thinking of joining the Black Horse Couriers just to get out of town."

"Not a great wage," Gogron said.

"That's why I haven't yet," the guard said. "Good night." He nodded to Dree. After an instant's paralysis, she nodded back.

"Night," Gogron said, and moved on.

"You talk to the guards?" Dree said, when they were out of the human's earshot.

"Sure. I have to move around in daylight sometimes, and I'm what you call conspicuous. They're not bad men."

"Have you ever had to kill one?" Dree said.

"Not here in town," Gogron said, and Dree let it go at that. _He's slept four hours in two days that I've seen, and even if he's crazy, I owe him. Now's not the time to be asking questions. _She followed him down the street to the empty house. The boards holding the door shut were a joke, and the casual way Gogron pulled it open anyway suggested how they had achieved their current warped condition. Dree followed him through the dust and debris to the basement door. As they went down the stairs she saw the eerie light emanating from what must be the front door to the Sanctuary. She stared at what was painted on it.

"What's that?" she said.

"The Night Mother," Gogron said. "Don't stand too close."

"Not to worry," Dree said.

Gogron reached for the handle. Dree tried not to twitch as a hissing voice came from the door. "_What is the color of night?"_

"What, again?" Gogron said tiredly. "You know bloody well what the color of night is. Open up."

The door remained obstinately shut. Gogron muttered something. "Fine. Sanguine, my brother."

_"Welcome home,"_ the door said sweetly, and swung open.

"I keep telling Ocheeva we have to get that thing fixed," Gogron said as they entered the Sanctuary's main room. The Dark Guardian paused in its endless circuit to clatter its teeth at them. Gogron nodded at the creature as if it were a person, so Dree did too. _Maybe it is. It wouldn't be here all the time if it were summoned._

Ocheeva stood waiting for them in the dark beside one of the columns. She stood without even her tail twitching, which was something you didn't see often in Argonians. Dree knew she was there. Not the stealthiest assassin in Tamriel could hide her heart beating.

But Gogron seemed to know, too. He stopped before they reached the pillar and said, "Yeah?"

The shadow that was Ocheeva detached itself from the shadow of the pillar. The room was still dim; it was hard to divine even the bright colors on her facial scales. _Or I'm losing my ability to see color. Red still seems to show up just fine, _Dree thought.

"You've completed your assignment," she said.

"Beats me how you can always tell," Gogron said. "But yes. We have. They're all dead, not just Beneldren the Altmer."

"Then you've earned your bonus, for once," the Argonian said, and grinned, showing all her sharp teeth. "Congratulations. You have served the Night Mother well." She held out a sack. Gogron shifted the saddlebags on his shoulder, rebalanced them, and reached out and took it.

"Thanks," he said. "Dree did her part."

"So I understand," Ocheeva said. She turned her attention to Dree with every sign of goodwill and none of her earlier annoyance. "You've shown great potential. But I'm afraid you'll have to do a little better before you can become one of us."

"How?" Dree said.

"You must take the life of one who is not seeking yours," Ocheeva said.

Dree unraveled this silently. _He _did _run at me with a knife before I stabbed him. _"Oh," she said. "All right. Can I do that tomorrow?"

The Argonian laughed. "Very good. I'll look forward to hearing from Lucien." She faded back toward the double doors of her rooms. Gogron turned toward the living quarters. Dree went to tug one of the doors open and peer inside. A rat as large as a small dog sat in the middle of the corridor, staring at her with beady red eyes.

"Move," Dree said. The rat twitched its whiskers, then padded off behind some crates. Dree pulled the door all the way open as Gogron came in behind her. As they came out of the mouth of the hallway, Dree heard the sound of burlap rustling, and two hearts. The only problem was that the sounds seemed to come from opposite directions. Whoever was looking for something did not have a beating heart, or working lungs. _There's no reason for me to be afraid of vampires, _Dree told herself. _I am one._

Two of the beds were occupied, one by M'raaj-Dar, one by an Argonian whose name Dree could not remember. Vicente Valtieri stood in front of the food cupboard, mostly hidden by the doors, but Dree heard him rummaging inside.

"What are you doing?" Dree said. Behind her, Gogron stumped over to his own bed and unslung his gear. She heard the clink of his armor as he started to unbuckle the breastplate.

"And good evening to you, child of Sithis," Valtieri said, without looking around. "I am looking for apples. I begin to suspect, despite his pretensions to carnivorous appetites, that M'raaj-Dar has eaten them all."

"What do you want apples for?" Dree said suspiciously.

"Because I find grapes cloying, and the strawberries are a little soft at this time of year. Ah hah." The vampire closed the cupboard doors with one hand as he held up two apples in the other. "Would you like one? In honor of your accomplishment, perhaps?"

"I'm a vampire," Dree said.

"A fact which has not escaped my notice," Valtieri said. "The necessity of blood does not preclude the intake of other substances, though they will provide you no sustenance. I myself am partial to the taste." He tossed her an apple. She caught it without taking her eyes from him.

"You mean I can eat?"

"When you wish," Valtieri said. "Though I find wine has little savor any more, alas." Dree watched him bite firmly into the apple, producing a distinct _crunch._ She looked back at Gogron, but he was busy trying to pry his boots off.

_Maybe it's a trick, _she thought. _Or maybe it's something only old ones can do. _She turned the apple over in her hands. It was red, and firm, perhaps a little green still. _I used to like apples, when I could get them._ She raised her eyes to Valtieri again. He was halfway around the apple already, and she _did _see him swallow. Dree risked a tentative bite. It tasted unsurprisingly apple-like. She tried another one. The juice trickling down her throat was a welcome change from what she'd been drinking recently, the sweetness washing out the taint of the day's events. And, if all of it seemed to vanish the instant it hit her stomach, even that could not rob her of the taste on her tongue.

"This doesn't change anything," Dree said, between bites. "I'm still going to kill you."

"Really?" Valtieri smiled tightly. "I suppose that when the time comes, I shall have to resort to begging for mercy. Speaking of which, I understand from Ocheeva that you have made your first kill."

"She said it didn't count," Dree said. "He attacked me first."

"Then you have not heard from Lucien Lachance. Pity." He had finished most of the apple, and Dree watched with something like bemusement as he bit off the end of the core. "I'm sure you will do better next time. If you survive. You may find staying out of Gogron's reach a little more difficult in another setting."

"I'll manage," Dree said. Her own apple was down to a core now. She went to set it down beside the crates for the rat, being careful never to fully turn her back to Valtieri.

"Your newfound speed may be of some assistance," Vicente said blandly. Dree eyed him for a moment. She supposed it couldn't hurt to ask. He'd said she could, hadn't he? And if she hated to take anything from _him, _well, there was no one else to ask.

"Can you see through walls?" she said.

"When I care to," Valtieri said. "And only things which are... One does not say alive. Animate."

"Can all vampires?" Dree said.

"I am not certain. I'm afraid I'm quite the social pariah," Valtieri said. "I used to correspond with a contemporary – one who kept his looks rather better than I have, I'm afraid - but I have not heard from Lovidicus in some time. It may be that we all can. It may be that you have received the hunter's sight from me."

"I see."

"There are worse things to inherit, I assure you," Valtieri said. "I sometimes wonder if my own sire was wont to burst into flames at the first touch of sunlight. I could not go out by day, as you have done."

"Gogron found me a robe," Dree said.

"Hm," Valtieri said. He swallowed the last remains of the apple core and wiped his hands firmly on the hem of his black tunic. "If you will pardon me, I must have a word with Ocheeva. At such time as you decide to end my life, you will of course find me available. Or if you have further questions. Good night."

He left the room without making a sound. Dree, who was most definitely listening, didn't even hear the door close. She only knew that it was because she went afterwards to check. She came back and found Gogron still sitting on the edge of the bed, now clad in nothing but trousers. He was dabbing sticking plaster on one or two cuts on his ribs and shoulders, where blows had driven the edges of his armor into his skin. Dree stared for a moment. She'd known, surely, that he must have taken wounds in his life. He was an assassin, right? But the panoply of scars that crisscrossed his ribs and back was still startling. He also had a very colorful bruise over his heart, where some necromancer had underestimated the thickness of his breasplate.

"Is that from a mace?" Dree said.

"I don't remember," Gogron said. "I never do. Well, mostly." He turned one arm outward, showing a small notched scar on the knotty triceps. "That's from an arrow. Only time I ever went outside without armor since I've been here, and somebody tried to snipe me. I never found out who it was, but I can guess."

"Telaendril again?" Dree said.

"She wouldn't miss," Gogron said. The space under his gold-brown eyes looked bruised in the dim light. "So it was either somebody else, or it was just for spite instead of trying to kill me. Can't kill a Brother. It's a Tenet."

"She must really hate you," Dree said.

"Un huh," Gogron said. He tucked the sticking plaster back into a tin box and put the box back into a pouch. "She thought she wanted a brute. Somebody to make her feel tough just for being with him. Problem was, she didn't want me to actually _be _one. And I am."

"Yes," Dree said, thinking of the bodies now rotting in the cave.

"I'm going to turn in for a while now," Gogron said. "You need anything, wake me up."

"All right," Dree said. "See you tomorrow, Gogron."

"Night." He lay down on his side without bothering to get under the blankets. A moment later, he was snoring. Dree watched this for a few moments, perversely curious to see if he would wake the others, but they did not seem to notice. _They've probably all been sleeping in here for a long time. They're used to it. _After a while she wandered back out of quarters. She tried to close the door without making a noise, but she heard the distinct _click _of the latch. _So how did _he _do it?_ she wondered. _Is it a vampire thing, or an assassin thing?_

Sounds came from behind the doors across the main Sanctuary. A regular metallic _clang-clang, _like a giant chain being shaken back and forth. Dree crossed the dark room, listening. The Dark Guardian was still going around and around, apparently undisturbed by whatever-it-was. Eventually, Dree pushed the door open and slid inside.

The doors opened directly into the room, without hallway or stairs like the living quarters. Crates and barrels lay around the walls and against the pillars. Archery butts made of straw with painted targets stood against the middle of the back wall. Another target, painted on panels of dark wood, hung from the ceiling near a corner. From the scorch marks, Dree guessed it was for spell practice.

There was a practice dummy off to the far side of the archery butts. It was made of wood held together by chains, bolted to floor and ceiling so that the "legs" and "arms" formed an X. A slender Imperial crouched in front of it, slashing at its belly with a short blade. The soft _thud-thunk_ of the knife striking the wood was barely audible, but the _clang_ of the chains as the dummy twitched was very clear. The woman's short,pale hair fell forward around her face, hiding her features as she hacked mechanically at the wooden man. _Thud-thunk. Thud-thunk._

Dree edged closer. The woman stopped at once, dagger in hand, but she did not turn.

"This step is too loud for anyone I know," she said in a mild, pleasant voice, but the accent was more Breton than Imperial. "And we have no visitors in the Sanctuary."

"Sorry," Dree said. "I fell down the well day before yesterday. My name's Dree. You must be Antoinetta Marie."

"Yes, that's me." The woman straightened and turned, but she made no move to sheath the dagger. (She wore the same dark, snug armor as Ocheeva, Dree noticed.) Her face was ordinary, not particularly pretty or ugly, forgettable. _Like my face was, once. _Dree had expected her to be older, but her face was unlined. She might just be an armorer, a shopkeeper, someone you met on the street. Her eyes were big and soft, like a deer's.

"You're up late," Dree said into the silence. Marie did not seem to find it awkward. She was inspecting Dree closely from head to toe. She did not answer for some seconds.

"You have the Dark Gift," was what she finally said.

_It's not a gift, _Dree wanted to say, but she remembered what Gogron had said about this particular assassin. "Yes," she said.

"And if you came to us here, you must have received it from Vicente," Marie went on. Her voice was cheerful, as though they were discussing gardening, or the weather. There was something wrong with her reasoning, but Dree did not see now as a good time to point that out.

"Yes, I did," Dree said.

"You are too young to have earned such a gift," Marie said. Her tone was one of mild reproach, as if Dree had suggested there was really no reason to prune the hedges.

"I think so," Dree said. _I certainly _hope _I didn't do something to deserve this._

"Well, at least you are aware that Sithis has blessed you," Marie said, smiling a friendly and also very frightening smile. "The Dark God's ways are mysterious. Sometimes when I kill, he comes to me and fills me with the joy of suffering and death. Sometimes I feel nothing. And sometimes I want to die myself. Indeed, strange are the ways of Sithis."

"They must be," Dree said.

"Has he spoken to you?" Marie said. "Do you hear his voice?"

"Not yet," Dree said. "Perhaps I will later." _Maybe if I'm very lucky, I never will. _This seemed to meet with Antoinetta's approval, because she smiled again.

"It's been a long time since we had a new Sister," she said. "I see you're carrying a knife. Do you know how to use it?"

"Not very well," Dree said, grateful for a change in topic.

"Would you like to learn?"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_When gameplay and lore contradict each other, I try to choose the one that makes more sense. For example, consider that a)by lore, Ocheeva and Teinaava have been assassins for longer than anyone else in the Sanctuary except possibly Vicente, but b)they aren't hard to kill in the game itself. _

What followed was one of the busiest nights in Dree's life. Antoinetta Marie had an interesting teaching method. Dree was more than slightly startled the first time they played a "practice round" and Marie made a wicked slash at her gut. Dree jerked back with the speed she had forgotten she had, but Marie still cut a shallow groove across her exposed belly. At least she'd taken her robe off (she was training in her old trousers and her bra), so her precious new garments would not be stained.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Dree said. The cut stung. Blood seeped down over her skin. This would always be a nauseating feeling, but she wished it were not so cold.

"Of course," Antoinetta said, looking bemused at Dree's shock. "You don't fight to wound with a knife, dear Sister. You would be annihilated. Not to worry, I won't try very hard at first. Pity you don't have any armor yet. You've got to keep your arm up to block, but that just makes it all the easier for me to get at that big artery in your arm." She jabbed demonstratively, forcing Dree to dodge sideways again.

"What if you succeed?" Dree said, after another hour or so of this sort of practice. Antoinetta was sweating, but only very slightly. Dree had discovered that sweating, unlike bleeding, was part of the list of organic things vampires could not do. She had also quickly learned the annoying truth that untrained speed and strength, however supernatural, have sharp limits when opposed by skills that are honed to the level of knee-jerk reflex. Antoinetta seemed to anticipate everything she tried. Dree had to scramble just to keep from being gutted.

"In...? Oh," Antoinetta said. "If you are truly beloved of Sithis, that will be impossible. Only a very unworthy recipient of the Gift could be killed in training."

"Oh, good," Dree said. Among Antoinetta's other interesting traits seemed to be a complete inability to comprehend sarcasm. She smiled serenely and attempted to sweep Dree's feet out from under her. This being the fourth time, the tactic failed. Dree braced one foot and brought the other down on the sweeping leg with her heel propped against the ground. This should not, technically, have worked, but Dree was much stronger than a very small Bosmer had any right to be. She slashed down at Antoinetta's eye while her leg was still trapped. The woman rolled neatly backwards, freeing herself, but Dree had felt the blow connect. Besides, she could finally smell blood that wasn't hers.

"Halt," Antoinetta said. She got smoothly to her feet, reaching up to touch the cut on her cheek. She inspected the blood on her fingers. "Oh, very good_," _she said approvingly, and Dree saw her take a small step backwards, as if she had momentarily lost her balance. She shook her head. "Though you might look for one with a stronger poison enchantment."

"We found this on a necromancer," Dree said.

"So it is a trophy," Marie said. "The Night Mother does not frown upon such things. We must remember that the weak exist to die at our hands. Shall we continue?"

"Are you sure?" Dree said.

"Oh, yes," Marie said. "The night is young."

---

Several hours later, Dree concluded that Antoinetta was neither Imperial nor Breton. She was a demon. Nothing human or mer could possibly go on so long without pause. It was early morning, and Marie showed no sign of slacking her pace, though she was breathing heavily now. Dree had not succeeded in cutting her again. _I wish it was the other way around. It's a good thing these pants were ruined anyway. _She was now aware that not only her arms, but her inner legs had a large blood vessel close to the surface, and if the latter seemed very inconvenient to reach with a dagger, this was no deterrent to Antoinetta. In fact, she had explained in loving detail what she was trying to do more than once.

"Nothing for it," Antoinetta said, after a particularly unsuccessful block left Dree with a bleeding wound down her left forearm. "The floor's too slick, and we've still got to mop up before everyone else comes in." She sounded mildly disappointed, as if it had been her fixed intention to go on indefinitely. Dree looked down at the floor. It was, indeed, slick, although she gave it only a few minutes before it became tacky.

"Ugh," she said.

"I thought you liked blood," Marie said. She turned to move over to the small basin and fountain in the corner, stripping off the top half of her armor.

"Need, not like," Dree said, following her cautiously and trying not to look down at the footprints her bare feet were leaving. "You don't like bread that's fallen on the floor, do you?"

"There was a time when I would have been glad to have bread that hadn't fallen in the gutter," Marie said cheerily. She didn't sound tired at all, though she was beginning to look it. "But that was before Lucien found me."

"I know what you mean," Dree said, remembering what seemed like a distant past, but was in fact two weeks ago. "I was begging before _he... _Before Valtieri found me."

Marie shook her head and tsked as she began to wash her upper half in the fountain. "And here I was ready to give him as much as he liked. But he will go his own way, as we all must do in pursuit of the God's will. Come on, don't be shy. It circulates quickly."

Dree knelt awkwardly over the basin, trying to ignore the red drips as she poured water over her head with her hands. She would rather have simply stuck her head under the flow of water, but that would prevent her from keeping an eye on Antoinetta Marie, whose dagger now sat on the black stone rim of the little pool.

"Oh, don't worry," Marie said, catching one such glance. She picked up the knife, rinsed it, dried it, and sheathed it. "You're a worthy one. You've done extremely well. I don't recall that anyone else I trained has cut me on the first bout."

Dree by now knew well enough to ask, "How many of them survived that first bout?"

"Oh, about two thirds," Marie said. She dunked the lower half of her armor in the pool and shook it vigorously. The material seemed to shed water even better than oilskin. "I very nearly had Gogron - he's not quick enough for a knife fighter, really - but he's got muscle that thick over everything and I miscalculated. He's a bit bulkier than you. Also his reach is longer."

"It would be," Dree said, carefully scrubbing her bra and trying to ignore the fact that she was thirsty again. Her head was pounding.

"I had to switch to shortswords just to find a weapon he could actually hold," Marie chattered on as she splashed water onto her hair and face. "In the normal course of things I would simply have crept up behind him and stabbed him in the base of the skull, but then he wouldn't learn anything, would he?" She smiled graciously. "You go ahead and finish up here. Bled rather a lot, haven't you? Tsk. I'll mop up."

"Thanks," Dree said. She was beginning to feel a little lightheaded, not completely sure if she should be grateful, angry, or terrified. Marie probably had that effect on a lot of people. The ones she didn't kill right away, that was. Dree looked around to make sure no one else was present before she stripped down and washed everything, then put her robe on as she laid the other things out to dry on the off chance they weren't completely ruined. She felt the robe sticking to the places that hadn't clotted up all the way, especially her left forearm. _I just hope Gogron was right about it not showing stains, _she thought muzzily.

Dree circumvented Antoinetta, who was now humming a tune as she mopped the stone floor, and went out the door of the training room. She tried not to stagger as she made her way back into the living quarters. Everyone seemed to still be asleep, so she crawled under Gogron's bed again. After that she curled up around the dip in the mattress, tried to arrange herself so that her sorest points were not pressured, and pulled the darkness up around her like a blanket.

---

It should not be possible to have nightmares when one does not sleep like people do, but Dree was having one. _Her body was made of dry dust, shattering into fragments as the breeze struck her - _

"Dree?"

The vision evaporated. She opened her eyes and was looking at Gogron's square, green face, suddenly on a level with hers. _He's kneeling next to the bed. _

"Dree?" he said again, and she realized he probably could not see her very well in the shadow. He sounded actually worried, which was odd, because he hadn't sounded that way back in the cave.

"What time is it now?" Dree said.

"About noon," Gogron said. "I figured you were just doing like Vicente, until Antoinetta told me what she did. You want to come out of there?"

"All right," Dree said. Gogron's face vanished as he stood up. Dree crept out from under the bed and stood, running her fingers through her disarranged hair. Nothing hurt, which made no sense at all. She slid back her sleeve and looked at her forearm. A hairline scar was all that was left of the deep cut from last night. A brief survey of the parts of her she was willing to display to public (which was to say, Gogron's) view revealed that those cuts had vanished as well.

"They're all gone," Dree said.

"Bosmer heal that fast?" Gogron said.

"Not without spells, and I don't know any," Dree said.

"So it's another vampire thing," Gogron said. "Good. I ought to have warned you. I was hoping you wouldn't run into Marie's idea of training so soon."

Dree looked around and, more importantly, listened. No one seemed nearby. "Is she insane?"

Gogron scratched the top of his head with a large finger. "Now there I could only give you a meaningful answer if you thought _I _wasn't crazy. She mostly follows the Tenets and she always earns a bonus on a job."

"Mostly," Dree said. She sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching up to touch her own face. This time the lines she felt there were not such a shock, but she was still glad there were no mirrors in the living quarters. "You mean like, she's only broken the _don't kill other assassins _one five times?"

"Twice, that I know of," Gogron said. He sat down on the bed opposite. He was in full armor. The bed creaked protestingly. "She's fought the Spirit twice and won, though, which is more than anybody else has done. You break a Tenet, you get thrown out. Then the Spirit of Sithis comes looking for you. You survive, you get back in."

"So what's the Spirit of Sithis?" Dree said. Gogron shrugged.

"Marie only says it's beautiful. Which to me says I don't ever want to see it."

"I agree," Dree said fervently.

Gogron grinned, showing a set of mostly crooked teeth. Dree noticed suddenly that one of his upper canines was missing. Usually the gap would be behind a tusk, hidden from view. "So are you ready for some lunch, or what?"

"How are your wrists?"

"Fine. I heal real fast. Well, not as fast as you." He took off his gauntlets and held out the first wrist she'd bitten. The marks were indeed gone.

"No scars," Dree said.

"Nah. Not deep enough. I showed Vicente and he says you're a neat eater. For a new one."

"Oh, good," Dree said.

"Come on, then," Gogron said.

Sometimes while she was drinking, Dree's heart would twitch as if it were trying to beat, a strange flutter in her chest. It was a distraction, and consequently the only pulse she could hear was Gogron's. So it was not entirely surprising that Dree did not hear the Argonian come in, and when she glanced up from Gogron's arm and met the red slit-pupiled eyes, it startled her more than slightly. She froze for a second, tightening her grip.

"I beg your pardon," the Argonian said. He rearranged himself slightly on the bench where he sat, and was very still again. "This one did not mean to alarm you."

"Um... You wanna let go now, Dree?" Gogron said.

Dree let go hastily. She'd left little white fingermarks in his green skin, but they faded quickly. Gogron handed her his hip flask with one hand as he picked up the sticking plaster with the other. She watched the Argonian as she sipped. He watched back, leaning against the wall in his dark robe. It was hard to read an Argonian face, but he didn't seem disgusted. _Great. Another one like Marie._

"This doesn't bother you, does it," she said. She wiped the corners of her mouth carefully as she sat on the edge of the bed. Dried blood on her skin never ceased to disgust her, vampire or not.

The tail that lay beside him on the bench twitched slightly. "I have been a Shadowscale from my birth, small Sister. Nothing does," he said. His voice was soft and, if anything, bemused.

"I don't know your name," said Dree. The scales of his face were patchy green and red. His jaw was bigger than Ocheeva's, but she supposed that was because he was a man.

"I apologize. I am Teinaava," he said. "Why are you drinking this swill of Gogron's?"

"That's cyrodilic brandy," Gogron objected. "Cost me fifty a bottle. On sale."

"Then you have been taken advantage of, my Brother," Teinaava said. "I can smell it from here and I assure you, that is not brandy of any kind."

"Hmph." Gogron accepted the bottle back from Dree. "You're the one who knows poisons, and I guess this is one either way."

"Poisons?" Dree said.

"Sure," Gogron said. "Ocheeva wants somebody sniped, she sends Telaendril. She wants them to suffer before they die, she sends Marie. And if she wants it to look like they had the grippe, she sends Teinaava."

"That is not _entirely _the case," the Argonian said.

"Eh, well," Gogron said. "Most of us do one or two things. A jack-of-all-trades is going to end up doing one thing most of the time just because the numbers work out that way. Even with a pedigree like you and Ocheeva have, Brother."

"Did you say you were a Shadowscale?" Dree said. "What's that?"

"Ah, yes, the many questions," Teinaava said. "It is good that you are not too proud to ask. I am fond of books, but on this subject the texts are few, and asking is the only way to learn."

"I don't read very well," Dree said. _That's what happens when you mostly have to teach it to yourself, and you can't get books._

"There are many who never learn at all," Teinaava said. "I have known others to mistrust the writing down of things in general. It saddens me. But I did not answer your question. When one is born in the Marsh under the sign of the Shadow, we are given to the Brotherhood to raise. Those who survive are Shadowscale. Ocheeva and I grew together from the shell. I have not her administrative talents, I fear. I console myself with the knowledge that she is an impatient scholar."

"Could you lend something to Dree?" Gogron said. "If she's not reading, she ought to be. What was that one you started me on, right after I got here?"

"That was a long time ago, Brother," Teinaava said. He stood up. Watching this was an education in itself. Everyone in the Sanctuary was graceful. Teinaava moved as though he had no bones. "I think perhaps it was the Barbarian's Alphabet. I keep it for sentimental value."

"That's Shadowscale for you," Gogron said, and grinned. "Sentimental. Probably got a trophy from your first kill and everything."

The Argonian smiled back. "I am afraid so. But I was only ten years old, and I am afraid I have lost track of the fingerbone now. I will find the book for you, Sister Dree."

"Thank you," Dree said.

"I hope I can help," Teinaava said, and slid off. Dree watched him until he was out of normal sight.

"He seems very... Polite," she said.

"Sure," Gogron said. He unslung his axe and started toward the doors. "Nothing to prove. It's like that, when the scariest thing you know is you."

"And a few close friends?" Dree said.

"Yep," Gogron said. "Come on. You can practice your archery while I'm hitting the dummy."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The next few days passed relatively uneventfully in resting, training, and talking with Dree's new housemates. Teinaava did turn up with a cyrodilic alphabet, and Dree spent some time trying to decipher that also. She couldn't see how it was going to help, but Gogron seemed to think it was important.

She also heard him having a chat with Antoinetta Marie. He didn't raise his voice. He never seemed to, which was unusual in an Orc. (Dree supposed it might be necessary in an assassin.) The woman continued to be courteous and cheerful, but she barely spoke to Dree from that point on. Dree trained, was polite to everyone to the extent of her limited knowledge of what "polite" meant, and kept her head down.

This went on until Middas. That day Dree got up to find Gogron already in his gear and ready to go.

"Rise and shine," he said. "Got a contract."

Dree had her own "breakfast" in a hurry and scrambled into her equipment as Gogron ate. Teinaava and Marie were getting dressed as well. (M'raaj-Dar still slept, making a soft buzzing noise Dree had finally decided was snoring.) Everyone seemed to dress and undress without paying attention to the sex or race of whomever else was in the room, so Dree didn't, either. It was luxury enough to be changing indoors, into the nicest things she'd ever owned.

She thought Gogron wasn't paying attention, either. Then on the way out of the house he said, "Been beaten a few times?"

Dree looked sideways at him from under her hood as they walked toward the front gate of Cheydinhal. "What?"

"You've got some scars on your back," Gogron said.

"Some of them are from Antoinetta," Dree said. "They're fading."

"Un huh," Gogron said. "But they leave different marks."

"I guess they do," Dree said. "I _was _a slave, Gogron."

"Slaves are worth money," Gogron said. "Can't mark them up too much or they lose value. Those look like family to me. None of my business, of course. Always been nosy, for an Orc."

Dree debated silently with herself.

"When my mother was on skooma," she said finally, "she had this stick with a knobby end she liked to use. If I made a noise, or like that. Sometimes she'd cut off bits of it, so it would scratch."

"My old Dad used to do something like that when he was drunk," Gogron said. "Always blunt stuff, though. Never cut me."

"But you killed him," Dree said.

"Yeah," Gogron said. "Don't recommend it, though. Killed everybody else I knew at the time, too."

"Where are we going?" Dree said, as they walked out the heavy gate of the city. She waved to the guards. They waved cheerfully back, enjoying the morning sun. The low brown building that was the stables loomed up ahead.

"An estate up in the hills Eastward," Gogron said. "Tell you more when we're out of civilized earshot."

---

"Well?" Dree said. They rode along a dirt track surrounded by trees. A few wildflowers stood along the road or among the roots, splashes of color against the dull greens and browns. Dree didn't recognize most of them, though she could spare enough time to notice them now. Her second riding experience was proving a little easier than the first one.

"Contract, right," Gogron said. "Lord Someone – I think it was Bekinrith, sounds like an Altmer – made Lord Someone Else mad enough to want him dead. Killed his son in a duel or something. But Lord – Belekrith? Sorry, bad with Elvish names, Dree – is an invalid so he can't do it himself. At least that's what he told his contact. So we're going to Benderith-or-whatever Estate and kill everyone there. The wife and most of the staff are supposed to be down in the Imperial City shopping, so it'll be just him and his bodyguards."

"Is it bad that I'm glad about that?" Dree said.

"Probably," Gogron said evenly. "But I am, too. Hate to kill noncombatants. That's for Telaendril and Marie, all that sneak-up-and-stab-them business."

"As opposed to run-up-and-whack-them with an axe?" Dree said.

Gogron shrugged his massive shoulders. His pauldrons clinked faintly. "It's a living," he said. "And I hate to wake up in the middle of a bunch of dead kids."

Dree's skin crawled. "Does that happen a lot?" she managed after a second.

"Once was too often," Gogron said quietly.

An awkward silence followed, the sound of two people realizing the conversation has reached a point beyond which it may not go. Dree couldn't see Gogron's face, since she sat behind him on the horse. His heart thudded on in front of her like the drumbeat of Oblivion. She searched desperately for something to say. "So we're going in during the day?"

"Sure," Gogron said. He sounded relieved. "Nobody around up in the mountains. The guards are in shifts, so there won't be any fewer at night. Besides, I have lousy night vision."

"You did all right inside that cave," Dree said.

"I don't remember, but I'd guess once the running and yelling started, people were pretty easy to find. This bunch is going to be a lot more organized than the necromancers were."

"How many guards?" Dree said.

"Ten in each shift. Plus Lord Whatsisname, but he's not supposed to be much of a combatant. The house is pretty big, so your job this time will be to make sure he doesn't sneak out the back. You see me coming, climb up on something high. I can't climb."

"Oh, good," Dree said dryly. "What else do I need to know?"

They rode on through the quiet wood as Gogron explained. There was not much undergrowth. _The trees take up the sun and it never hits the ground, _said something inside Dree that was very old, and mer enough to survive a lifetime of cities. She pushed it back and tried to concentrate on what the Orc was saying. His armor vibrated through her arms when he spoke.

"There's a bonus for not killing the guards, but it's not going to happen," Gogron concluded finally.

"No," Dree said, thinking of what had been left of the necromancers.

"One more thing," Gogron said. "Listen close. These guards are organized. They know how to work together, and they're not just going to run at you and yell. Some of them will have been trained by thieves and know how to walk quiet, and they won't hesitate to sneak right up and stab you in the back. You're going to have to get them first."

"I understand," Dree said.

"Not sure you do," Gogron said. "I like you. So do some of the others. But if you don't get somebody this time, I'm going to have a hard time explaining it to Ocheeva. I'd rather leave you here than try, because here you can walk away and I can say you're dead."

"You'd lie to Ocheeva?" Dree said.

"I have before," Gogron said. "Once or twice."

They rode on. The terrain became steeper as they went. Eventually Gogron dismounted and led the horse on foot. Dree climbed down too, because she still wasn't sure she could stay on by herself.

"We'll be there by nightfall," Gogron said. "Ocheeva wouldn't send me too far afield with a new one in tow."

"Good," Dree said. "Daylight isn't the same. I feel stronger at night."

"I guess that stands to reason," Gogron said.

"I hate being a vampire," Dree said.

"Why?" Gogron said.

Dree stared at him. The sun was just starting to set, picking out the gold highlights on his armor. "What do you mean, why?"

Gogron shrugged. "Why do you think Vicente's so picky about who ought to be one? You're stronger than before. Faster. You can see through walls. You don't need food and you can go for days without drinking. What part of that is bad?"

Dree struggled for words. "I'm dead," she said. "I've got no life of my own any more. Only what I can take from other people. From you. And..." She peered out from under her hood at the declining afternoon. "I used to love to just lie in the sun."

"Oh," Gogron said. "Yeah."

They walked on. The sun drew down toward the horizon.

---

The duty guards at Lord Bendorith's estate were bored. This is a normal state of affairs for duty guards. City guards at least have the option of wandering around looking for miscreants to apprehend. A bodyguard spends most of his time waiting for the miscreants to come to _him._ There are only a limited number of criminals willing to attack a heavily guarded person to begin with, so the job tends to be rather dull. And, because of the kind of people who _are _willing to attack a heavily guarded person, the parts that were not dull were very exciting indeed. This is why it was necessary to have ten guards in each shift – the other ten had to spend part of their time training, so that the constant standing and staring around would not make them completely soft.

At the moment, the front door guards were watching a very large person in full black-and-gold armor walk through the front gate. Race was impossible to determine under the armor, but at least it was hard to picture an Elf that big.

"Wasn't that supposed to be locked?" one guard said.

"I think he used a spell," said the other, There was a surreptitious rearrangement of hands toward weapons. One of them kicked the lever that would ring a bell inside telling the others somebody was here who didn't belong.

"Hold, there!" the first guard called, as the armored intruder came closer. He was moving slowly, but they received the impression it was because he wanted to. He walked far too easily to be very encumbered by the armor. This was not a reassuring thought. Dwarf-made mail is known to be ridiculously heavy.

He stopped.

"Here to see Lord Ben – Benek – whatever his name is," said the intruder. His voice was muffled inside the helmet, but the way it seemed to come from clear down at the soles of his feet suggested he was probably Orcish.

"Really? And who are you?" said the guard.

"Nobody," the intruder said. He reached up one arm and drew an axe. The guards had their own weapons out before he had finished.

"You'll never get in," one said. "Do you know many of us there _are _up here? Spending all day just _waiting _for somebody like you to come along? Move on, friend. Nobody's paying you enough to get killed."

"That's true," the Orc said. He adjusted his grip on the axe. A red light lay along the blade, redder than the glow of sunset. Behind the helmet's visor, two points of gold lit up to match it.

"So how much is he paying _you?_" said Gogron gro-Bolmog.

---

Dree crept around the back of the enormous building, feeling exposed. There were no trees right next to the house, probably in order to prevent people like her from using them as cover or easy access to the roof. She hugged what ornamental shrubbery she could find, and worked very hard at keeping herself chameleon against the dark background. It was almost the only magic she knew. People were patrolling out here, but as she slunk toward the servants' entrance she heard a distant bell. The guard she'd been keeping an eye on for several minutes immediately drew her sword and ran for the front gate.

Off in the distance, someone shouted. There was a harsh _clang _like metal striking metal.

Dree looked around carefully one more time. No one was nearby, either in ordinary vision or the vague blue world Vicente Valtieri had called the hunter's sight She could see shapes inside, but all the nearest ones were oblong and more or less horizontal. _Servants, probably, _she thought, and then something else snapped on in her mind and she realized just what that meant.

_Surely he wouldn't hit a sleeping person, _she told herself. _Someone who wasn't even moving? Surely not._ Images of dismembered necromancers kept recurring to her mind, however, and so when she went in the back door (which was, inexplicably, unlocked) she turned toward the first room on her left.

There were two beds, barely visible in the dim light from the hallway torches. Both were occupied by women. One of them couldn't be older than Dree. She tried not to dwell on this as she went and shook the older woman's shoulder.

"Wake up," Dree whispered.

The woman stirred. "Wha? Who's that?"

"Everybody here is going to die," Dree said.

"_What?_" the woman sat up all the way. The hallway light on her face revealed her to be Dunmer, dark skinned and red of eye. Her hair was disheveled from sleeping, but it had started tied back in a bun.

"You hear that?" Dree said.

The woman looked around. Toward the front of the house, someone screamed. The sound cut off very suddenly. Dree tried not to dwell on the memory of heads separated from bodies.

"Oh, gods," the woman said, but she did not seem to be panicking. In fact, she was looking at Dree closely for the first time, perhaps recognizing just what it meant that she was talking to a person she could see through.

"Your Lord is going to die tonight," Dree said. "You can't stop it. But we're not after you. If you collect up all the servants and leave _right now_, we'll let you go. Don't stop to pick things up. You can probably come back for them tomorrow. But every living thing in this house or near it tonight will be rotting by morning, you understand?"

"There are twenty guards in this house," the woman said.

"They're all dead," Dree said. "They just don't know it yet."

Her voice must have held the ring of convicton. The woman scrambled out of bed and began shaking her roommate. "Get up! We've got to go!"

Dree left the room as quietly as she'd come in, then slid out the back door. She'd already left her post, and who knew what secret exit the house might have? Who knew how long it might take the guards to realize all twenty of them were fighting a losing battle against one single Orc?

Except, of course, for the ones who realized it _really quickly._


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

There _was _a secret exit. Dree would have liked to discover it on purpose, but of all the places she looked with her new sight, _down _did not occur to her. What happened, in the event, was that she nearly tripped over the round grate. Further, she did it at the exact moment that a guard was on his way up out of it.

Dree righted herself quickly. Man and mer stared at each other. The guard had a sword in his hand, and his helmet hid his face.

"Oh, Sithis," Dree said, and then realized what she'd said. She drew her dagger as the guard tried to hack at her and scramble out of the hole at the same time. She darted backward as he shouted,

"Assassins!"

"Of course they're assassins, you idiot," echoed a voice from the bottom of the ladder. "Would a _thief _be running around swinging an axe? Kill whoever it is, so we can get out of here."

_Remember what Gogron said. He's got more experience than you. _Most people did so far, Dree thought. _Maybe he's slower. _She backed cautiously as the man stalked forward, turning his head to and fro to try and make her out in the dark. And she was still nearly invisible, she was sure of it.

_One way to find out. _Dree darted in and jabbed for the side seam in the man's chainmail cuirass. The knife slid in far too easily, and the sensation was revolting. By the time the man knew enough to grunt in pain she had stabbed him three times more, though in her frantic haste she missed the seam once. She twitched away as he tried to bring the sword around.

Dree tried not to feel sick as the man took a hesitant step toward her.

"Go back," he hissed toward the hole. Turning his head overbalanced him, and he staggered. _He's bleeding. I can smell it._ _I can see it, even in the dark._ She'd cut something important. The chainmail was dark all around the seam, and something inside was pulsing. _Better be quick, or they'll get away_. _He's a lot taller than I am. Maybe Marie's trick will work..._

Dree lunged forward and down, jabbed the knife into the man's inner thigh, and twisted as she jerked it downward. It sliced through the leather and hung up on the chainmail. She heard the sword whistle over her head as she ducked, but blood was spurting over her hand. Dree rolled quickly away and to her feet, looking around wildly.

The guard was on his knees. Blood soaked his greaves, still gushing. He reached for the knife, but his grasping fingers missed it, and he fell over onto his side. He jerked a couple of times as she watched in horrified fascination. The necromancer had been _quick, _do or die. It had been nothing like this.

_The knife. The tunnel. _Dree ran up and nudged the man with her foot, but her dagger was so covered in gore that she could hardly see it. The smell of blood did strange things to her vision, making it blur into red around the edges, making the roar of blood in the dying man's veins loud in her ears. She snatched up the shortsword from the guard's nerveless hand instead.

She heard the last rattle of his heart as she reached the edge of the grating. There was blood on her robe, where the first spray had hit her. _Not now. Not now._ She crouched at the edge of the hole, out of view of any potential archers below, but the guard's last warning had been heard. No one was there. Dree clambered down the ladder and set off up the tunnel. It was almost featureless, smooth walls of earth all around her. There were no torches, but the smell of smoke said there had been recently. _Ha, _she thought, and suppressed a hysterical laugh. _You can't blind me. _Everything around her seemed blue or red now, a million different shades of just two colors. Up ahead, around a corner, she could see the man and his guard. The outlines were no longer nebulous. She could see the Altmer's wrinkled face, and every ring on the guard's mail. This guard was bigger than the other, an unhelmed Argonian. He held a claymore in his hands. The sword was almost as long as Dree was tall. She saw his tail twitch as she grew closer.

"One approaches," she heard him say.

Dree blinkedwondering how he'd heard her, and then remembered the famed Argonian sense of smell. _The blood._

"Is it Garen?"

"No," said the Argonian. "I fear Garen is dead."

The old Altmer was grimly silent. Dree tried to find this reassuring, but her knife was back in the dead man, and she barely knew what to do with a shortsword. She adjusted her grip nervously as she came forward. She dropped the chameleon spell. There was no point, and she might need all her concentration, especially with the red aura distracting her. She could hear both hearts beating, faster than normal. _They can't go back. They know Gogron's in the house. The only way they can get out is through me._

_Oh, good. And I'd like it if that Argonian's pulse sounded a _little _more anxious, thank you very much._

"Argonian," she said. Her voice sounded wrong in her own ears. _When did I start hissing?_

"What?" said the guard.

"I'm only here for him. If you want to go, I'll let you pass."

"You are in no position to bargain, small one," the guard said. "We will pass you one way or another. You know it, or you would make no such offer."

"I'd rather not kill you," Dree rasped. "I didn't want to kill the other one." This, at least, had the ring of truth. "This is nothing to do with you. But Bendorith has to die."

"This one will listen no further," said the Argonian, and he threw himself around the corner.

He was a little slower than Garen. Marie's trick still worked.

A few seconds later, Dree stepped over the body, trying to ignore the Argonian's death throes. She'd held onto the short sword, at least, though the handle was slick and sticky against her palm. _Maybe it's better, sneaking up on them, _she thought, not looking at him. _I'll bet it's less messy. _Her sandals squelched in the blood on the floor as she rounded the corner and came face to face with her prey.

"I'm unarmed," said Lord Bendorith. He seemed more angry than afraid. "I _knew _I should have brought that dagger. This is Adenlor's doing, isn't it? That filthy cur of a son of his - "

"Probably," Dree said.

"Of course. You wouldn't know. You're just an underling, yes? I didn't even merit a _real _assassin, they sent a filthy little - "

Dree stepped forward and jabbed the shortsword up under his ribs. He gasped a couple of times, but his heart had stopped the moment the blade struck it. Dree moved out of the way as he crumpled. She reached down to get the sword back. It stuck against the bones, but by bracing her foot she managed it. Her shoe left more gore on his velvet shirt than the wound itself. At least a heart stabbing was _clean._

_I did it, _she thought. _I killed someone who wasn't attacking me. He didn't even have a weapon. _She had the feeling she'd missed something, that this should have been harder than killing the guards, but it wasn't. They were men doing their job. _Like I'm doing. _Bendorith was just a nasty old man who had made the wrong sort of enemies.

Lord Bendorith had been standing in front of a door. Dree opened it, and crept into the darkness of the house. Her ears were ringing, but she could still hear metal clashing off in the distance. She set off down the hallway, leaving bloody footprints as she went.

---

There were four guards left. Two Nords were circling Gogron in the main dining hall, stumbling over broken crockery as they tried to hit him without being hit. One Bosmer crouched on top of a high shelf, looking for an opening as he held an arrow nocked to his bow. The string sang, if you listened closely enough.

Dree saw these three from her position at the head of the basement stairs. Her vision had grown so narrow, however, that she didn't see the Human with the dagger until he stabbed her in the ribs.

The guard had stabbed people in the liver before. He knew enough to hold onto the knife, in case you got a berserker and you needed it later. If you didn't get a berserker, he knew what to expect: the initial cry of pain, the stumbling withdrawal, the fumbling as the body went into shock. It was his misfortune that he did not realize his quarry was a vampire. Shock is a function of the living.

Dree did scream. And then, crazed by pain and the stink of blood and death, she turned on him faster than eyes could follow. He lost his grip on the dagger as she shoved him against the wall, crushing him between that hard surface and her unyielding body. Then she wrapped her arm around his head, jerked his face down to her level, and sank her teeth into his throat.

Most vampires learn the skill of piercing the jugular, where two small punctures will not cause a sudden gush of blood. Dree knew nothing about this, and in that instant she was entirely a slave to her instincts. She bit directly into the great artery. Blood shot down her throat so fast it would have drowned a mortal.

For a few seconds she was blinded by the red haze. She drank, forgetting anything else. Dree hardly noticed as the man's struggles weakened, though she had to tighten her other arm around his body to hold him up. It was not until his heart actually stopped that she realized what she had done.

Suddenly, the roaring in her ears was gone. The haze cleared, and she was standing in a dead man's house with a dead man in her arms.

Dree let go abruptly. She watched the body fall to the carpet, and she never forgot the boneless _thump _it made. The man's head lolled. She saw the marks she had left. They seemed bigger than she'd expected, but only a very little blood ran out. _Of course. I drank it all, _she thought.

"Oh, gods," she said. _But the gods aren't listening. You know what the Divines think about vampires? You know what they think about murderers? You know what they think about YOU?_

Her wound had healed. The pain was gone. And she had committed a crime far, far worse than the killing of Lord Bendorith. _I didn't enjoy it when I killed the old man._

The room seemed suddenly quiet. Dree looked around, searching for anything else to look at but the corpse at her feet. Colors had come back, not that it mattered much. The room's original decorative sensibility had included lots of gray stone, but was presently ornamented in arterial red, shading to burgundy. The long dining table lay on its side. Both the Nords were dead, one headless and one chopped nearly in half. The bookshelf was in splinters. The Bosmer who had been atop it was not in much better condition.

Gogron gro-Bolmog stood in the middle of the room, swaying. He held his axe in both hands. His armor was dented in the chest and arms, befouled and bespattered like everything else in the room. Arrows were stuck in the upper joints of his armor. His helmet was off. Dree could see his matted hair, and the light in his gold eyes.

_There _is _a light, _she realized as he turned his mad stare on her. _His eyes are actually glowing._

"Gogron?" she said. She had to swallow down a clotty lump in her throat, and it was a good thing her gorge couldn't rise any more. Gogron looked at her. Bloody drool ran from one corner of his mouth, and whatever was looking out from behind his eyes showed no recognition. He raised the axe as he started toward her. He didn't seem very slowed by the arrows.

_I might as well go on living, _Dree thought. _Or whatever this is I'm doing. I've taken too many lives to give mine up now._

She turned and sprinted for the door. There were plenty of tall trees in the woods outside, and Dree on her _worst _day could still outrun an Orc in heavy armor.

Even so, it was a close thing.

---

Dree woke up to the dawn's early light. She was sitting in the crotch of a tree. Not being prone to any disorientation, she looked down to see if Gogron was still there. He was. Currently, the Orc lay sprawled at the base of the tree, one hand still firmly gripping the axe. The trunk next to him was heavily splintered where he'd been trying to chop it down.

"Good thing I chose a big tree," she said. Gogron stirred, then grunted as protruding arrows brushed against the ground.

"Gogron?" Dree said.

"Aargh," he said, and sat up. "Dree? That you?"

"Up here," she said. "Are you _you?"_

"Think so," Gogron said. He looked down at himself. "Hm."

Dree climbed carefully down. Flakes of dried blood floated off her robe. "Are those stuck in just your armor?"

"Mostly," Gogron said. "Are you all right?"

"Mostly," Dree said. "I killed Bendorith. He was unarmed. Do you still have your flask? My mouth tastes like... Ugh."

"Yeah," Gogron said. He fumbled for the container one-handed. His other hand did not seem to want to let go of the axe.

"Thanks." Dree rinsed her mouth and spat. The astringence washed away the taste of blood. "I left my knife in someone again."

"Not so good," Gogron said. He took a drink himself before he tucked the flask away. "But it looks like I lost my bloody helmet again, so I guess we're even on that one. There's a well in the back courtyard. Let's go find our gear and get cleaned up."

"Er," Dree said, remembering something _else _she had done in the course of last night.

"Er what?" Gogron said. He heaved himself upright, shaking his head.

"We might want to do that... Quickly..."

"Why?" Gogron said, heading toward the house. Dree jogged to catch up. More blood was flaking off her robe. It didn't seem to be leaving a stain behind. _This really _is _a magic robe._

"Because some people got away last night. I know we're a long way from town, but I don't know how long it will take them to get help and get back here."

Gogron stopped. Dree, perforce, stopped also.

"Who got away?" he said.

"The servants," Dree said.

"And how did that happen?" Gogron said.

Dree almost took a deep breath, before she remembered how pointless that would be. "I woke them up," Dree said. "They went out the back while you were killing the guards."

Gogron started toward the house again. Dree walked quickly next to him, trying to look at his face without seeming to do so.

"Are you sorry?" he said.

"No," Dree said.

Gogron exhaled hard, in the manner of a person too tired to laugh. "Me neither. We mostly don't get paid to kill servants, anyhow. Be different if you'd let the target get away."

"No," Dree said. "He didn't get away."

"That where you left your knife?" Gogron said. There were a few bodies lying in the grass in front of the house. These had suffered less than the ones Dree remembered seeing last night. _The archer probably got his attention before he had time to do more than give them a few cursory whacks_.

"No," Dree said. "I left the knife in one of the guards."

"And there he is," Gogron said, as they went around the corner of the house. The body was only a few yards from the well. At the moment it was hard to see, on account of all the flies.

"How do you know it's that one?" Dree said.

"Cause he's in one piece still," Gogron said. "Well, go on. Get your knife. Like you said, don't know how much time we have."

Getting the knife _back _proved nearly as unpleasant as putting it there to start with. Dree held the noisome object with two fingers as she went back to the well. Gogron was down to his trousers and was quickly splashing water on himself, his axe, and his armor. Red notches on his shoulders showed where three arrows had made contact. New and old bruises made an interesting patchwork on his green skin. Dree cleaned the knife the best she could with a bunch of grass. She skinned out of her robe to clean it, too, but the blood had dried up and blown away like dust. (She did this quickly, because the horizon was already shading from gray to gold.) And... She _had _been stabbed in the back last night...

Dree stared at the fabric stretched between her hands. "Gogron?"

"Yeah?" He poured a bucketful of water over his head, soaking his black hair, and shook it vigorously. Droplets of water flew everywhere.

"Where did you _get _this robe?"

"Bwrrrf," Gogron said. He flicked water out of one ear with a finger. "Why?"

"There's no hole in it," Dree said. "There should be a hole."

Gogron poured some water into his helmet and sloshed it back and forth. Dree noted that he must have picked it up again, but her mind was on the robe.

"There's a hole in my shirt," she said. "And a stain. Not on this."

"Near miss?" Gogron said.

"No," Dree said. "It wasn't. Gogron, the robe."

"Bought it at a shop," Gogron said. "In Cheydinhal. They get one new thing in every so often."

"Any idea where _they _got it?" Dree said. She put it back on slowly.

"Hun uh," Gogron said. He began to put the armor back on. "Probably someone found it in a ruin and had to sell it to keep eating. Money's real up and down in the adventuring business."

"Unlike this business?" Dree said.

"That's right," Gogron said. He settled the pointed helmet atop his head and flicked the visor up. "There's only so many ruins. There's always gonna be someone who needs killing. Let's check through before we go."

"Do we have time for that?" Dree said.

"Always," Gogron said. "And they're not going to get here from town any too quickly. Especially not if they think there might be somebody still here. City guards aren't that eager to get themselves killed, and Lord Whatsisname didn't have many friends."

Dree followed him down the secret exit – he barely fit through the hole – and up through the house. It was now literally dead quiet, except for the buzzing of the flies. A few ravens had come into the upstairs, and the occasional harsh cry seemed stifled on the thick air. _At least the blood's not fresh, _Dree thought. _In any case I shouldn't be thirsty for days now, after what I've done. _

"What'd you use here?" Gogron said as they passed Bendorith's body. He bent to retrieve the dead man's purse, then went on into the basement. The dead Altmer looked more peeved than anything else.

"Short sword," Dree said.

"From the guard," Gogron said.

"Yes."

"Good thinking."

"Thanks."

"So where is it now?"

"In the dining room," Dree said. "I think I lost it when this seven foot Orc came after me with an axe."

"Six foot eight," Gogron said. "You must jump pretty high, too. The lowest limb on that tree was what, twelve feet off the ground?"

"I was motivated," Dree said. Gogron made the not-quite-laugh sound again.

"Why don't you go upstairs and see if there's anything worth taking with us?"

"All right," Dree said, and went.

A few minutes later she found him in the dining room. "I found a couple of rubies and some jewelry," she said. "Not very much else, they must have taken it to the City with them - "

She broke off. Gogron was squatting next to the only intact corpse in the room. He held up a dagger that was bloodied to the hilt.

"This was his," he said. "And it's not his blood."

"No," Dree said. "It's mine."

"Must've gone in pretty far," Gogron said neutrally.

"All the way," Dree said. She stood beside him, looking miserably down at the corpse. "It healed when I... When I drank him."

"Hm." Gogron straightened up, tossing the dagger aside. "See, that's why I told you not to let them sneak up on you. You're lucky his aim was off. If he'd hit your heart, it wouldn't matter that you're a vampire. You'd be dust."

"You were right," Dree said. There was no point in trying to explain how she'd felt at the time. It didn't really matter. _It usually doesn't. _

"For all that, you did good, Dree," he said. "Most of us don't have to worry about a partner _and _ a target. You're alive. He's dead. And nobody knows who we are. That's all that matters."

"Sure," Dree said. A gauntleted finger edged under her chin, gently tilting her head up. Gogron looked down at her through the visor of the ridiculous helmet. His eyes were ordinary now, reflecting light as it fell into them.

"It's all that matters," he repeated. "And I owe you. If you hadn't been here, he could've gotten away, and I'd be in plenty of trouble then."

"You'd have chased him down," Dree said.

Gogron took his hand away as he shrugged. "Maybe. Anyhow, you've earned your fee on this one. Even LaChance will have to call you worthy now."

"Can we go home now?" Dree said. Her voice had come back. She was a little hoarse, but then, so was Gogron.

"Yeah," Gogron said. "Let's go home."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Dree was preoccupied enough on the way home that she forgot she was afraid of riding. It was hard to tell what Gogron was thinking, even with his helmet off. _He was like this afterwards last time, too. He probably always is_. The Orc sat slumped in the saddle. Dree sat pillion with her cheek against his cuirass, listening to the slow _thud _of his heart for the comfort it brought. Heat radiated off the metal.

_I drank a life. I wish last night had been the first time, _she thought. _I hope it's the last. _

Something hissed in her earA second later there was a _thunk_ behind her. She turned to see an arrow buried in a tree trunk.

"Bandits," Gogron said, and snatched up his helmet just as another arrow went _clang _against his breastplate. Then he reached around and batted Dree off the horse as easily as if she'd been a fly. Dree had sense enough to tuck in her limbs. She hit the ground on one shoulder, rolled, and came up under a red-flowered bush. She heard Gogron unlimber his axe as she scanned the bushes on the other side of the path.

"Three of them," she called. "A Khajiit and two Humans."

"Got to be kidding me," Gogron said. He sounded only slightly annoyed, and very tired.

One of the Humans drew and fired before he finished speaking. Dree threw herself flat as the arrow hissed overhead. _Right. No talking. Gogron's armor can take it, but mine can't. And gods know what'll happen if they really set him off. If there _is _a Sithis, I hope he really _does _like vampires, _she thought. She drew her dagger and began to crawl further up the path, behind a fallen tree that provided a little cover. Switching the hunter's sight on and off gave her a headache, but she could hear the bandits as well as see them now. _They must have been hiding a way back, or I'd have heard them before._

The black horse stamped its foot behind her as Gogron dismounted. She felt the vibration through the hard ground. The animal showed no inclination to bolt. But then, Gogron had bought it for an assassin's horse, hadn't he?_ They won't shoot it. It's worth too much money._

Dree glanced back. The Khajiit seemed to be circling Gogron with a warhammer. The archer must be a slow learner; he was still firing at Gogron. The other one seemed to be hanging back, hesitating to help his apparent comrade. Dree waited until everyone seemed to be looking away, then leaped up and ran across the road. She circled around behind the bandits, trying to avoid stepping on anything that might make a noise.

She did not remember Valenwood at all, but her woodcraft was still better than her horsemanship. _I'm still a Bosmer. Nothing Valtieri says can change that. _She crept up behind the vacillating bandit without being seen. Then she hesitated. _The Khajiit is going to die. Maybe all of them don't have to. And this one's not even wearing a helmet. _She trod up softly behind the man and pressed the tip of the dagger gently into the back of his neck. He froze. Dree resisted the urge to stand on tiptoe to speak in his ear. She raised her voice, instead.

"You haven't done anything fatal yet," she said. "Maybe you should take the hint."

"What do you want?" the man said, speaking in the stiff manner of someone trying to move his jaw muscles without moving his head.

"Start running," Dree said. "And believe me. I'll know if you try to circle back."

"Why should I?"

"You really think your friend can kill that Orc with an _iron_ warhammer?"

The bandit apparently deliberated for a second. Then he took a careful step forward away from the knife point and sprinted off down the road. Dree pivoted just in time to bat aside the shaft of another arrow. The archer dropped the bow and went for his sword.

Dree was faster. He was dead before he hit the ground.

She retrieved the knife from his ribs and wiped it carefully on the bandit's pants leg. Fur armor had much wider seams than chainmail, she noticed silently. _And I got his heart on the first try, even from the side. That's doing better, anyway. _She looked around.

The Khajiit was still alive. Dree watched him circle the Orc, tail lashing. Gogron turned to follow him as he moved, but he seemed slower than he should be, sluggish. The Khajiit darted forward and swung the warhammer at his head, and he barely hunched up his shoulder in time to divert the blow. Dree heard the metallic sound of the impact, and winced.

_He's not berserking. He's not even as good as usual. _The thought was confirmed as Gogron tried to decapitate the Khajiit with his axe. He missed, and not by a little. The weight of the axe dragged him sideways, off-balance, and the bandit raised the warhammer to bring it down on his helmet -

And Dree was behind the bandit without remembering the steps she'd taken. She stabbed the Khajiit at the base of his skull without any hesitation at all. For some reason, he didn't let go of the warhammer as he fell dead. _I wish I could stop noticing things like that._

"Gogron?" Dree said. The Orc righted himself, shaking his head.

"The other two?" he said. His voice was a little muffled. She could hear his lungs laboring away, making a noise she'd never heard before. _Not from the inside, anyway. Is he wheezing?_

"One's dead. One ran. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Gogron said, and took a deep breath. "Just too flaming slow. See if they've got any lockpicks. You never know when you'll need one."

Dree complied, keeping an anxious eye on the Orc as he went to hang his helmet on the saddle horn. Was he leaning on the stirrup, his back turned so she wouldn't see it? _Was he hit when I wasn't looking? He's still breathing funny._

"Here's one," Dree said, and pocketed the article she'd found. She stood up. "There's maybe ten gold, too. Want it?"

"Keep it," Gogron said, without turning around. "Maybe you'll want a couple of apples next time you're in town."

"They must have been pretty desperate," Dree said.

"Or just stupid," Gogron said.

"Or that," said Dree. "Are you sure you're all right, Gogron?"

He chuckled deep in his chest. "Knocked the wind out of me," he said. "Gonna have to do some work with a hammer, we get back."

---

Ocheeva stood by a pillar in the main Sanctuary and waited. Night had fallen, and no shaft of light now illuminated the dry shaft of the well. A thin pall of smoke from the torches clung to the ceiling, wafting unceasingly toward the outlet. No one in Cheydinhal would wonder at the smoke rising from the well. First, the cover would largely disperse it, and second, everyone had long since been warned off loitering behind the abandoned house.

Ocheeva tugged at a cranial spine. Not from annoyance at the smell, though it stung more in her nostrils than it would to man or mer. She had expected Gogron back sooner. But Gogron gro-Bolmog was perenially inconsistent in his arrivals and departures, beyond even the natural caution of avoiding predictable schedules. There was no cause for concern, Ocheeva told herself firmly. She knew he had completed his assignment, and twenty guards would never kill an Orc she'd sent against fifty before.

_Before, _she repeated silently, almost against her will. _If the little Bosmer has cost me a member of my Sanctuary, she had better be dead herself as well. _A lowly new Sister ought to start out on easy, simple things. A poisoning here. An invalid there. Things in which her clumsiness might endanger only herself, not an established and necessary Brother.

_Yet Gogron's time with us is limited, and ever has been. _The thought was a sad one, because Ocheeva liked the Orc. And more than that, as well. Ocheeva had been chosen as the task-giver for the Sanctuary for a good reason. There were those within the Brotherhood who were, like Gogron, only the unthinking arm of the Night Mother, serving without understanding. There were those who, like Marie, loved the god above all else, including the Tenets. _Most disordered and most dangerous of loves, yet it is powerful, _Ocheeva thought. There were those whose motives were simply greed and lust for power, power over life and death. There were even a few like Vicente Valtieri, who followed the rules out of a fastidious distaste for chaos and all its messiness.

And there was Ocheeva, who loved them all. Who loved them as once the Night Mother had loved her own sons, so much that she slew them to make them better and purer. Perhaps Lucien LaChance ruled the Sanctuary as its Speaker, but Ocheeva watched over it like a hen brooding her chicks. She was untroubled by Marie's expulsions, and welcomed her back gladly at each triumphant return. She was untouched by M'raaj-Dar's insubordination, and bought from him whatever he offered her. Valtieri could not repulse her with the worst of his excesses, not when she had been reared by Lucien LaChance. All of them needed someone to keep them going in the right direction. They needed _her. _Ocheeva had no children to sacrifice to the Dark God. Her daily sacrifice was the gift of herself.

Gogron gro-Bolmog had always earned her pity, the more so since she had come to realize that he _did _understand his situation. Assassins seldom grew old. Valtieri was very much the exception. Teinaava, most controlled and most careful of them all, probably had the best chance of living out a natural life; Gogron had been astoundingly lucky to reach the age of thirty and two. It was only a matter of time before he let the wrong man get away, and the Legion found him out. One day he would lose momentum at the wrong time, and find himself exhausted and confused in the midst of his enemies. One day he would simply not see an archer in time.

Ocheeva would accept the inevitable. But she would not welcome any development that might hasten that end, and disturb the tranquility of her home besides. The vampire Dree seemed very likely to do both of those things. This was particularly true now that Gogron had had time to get attached to her. Ocheeva did not look forward to watching him go through the inevitable heartbreak when the stupid creature got herself killed. It would probably be at Gogron's own hands, which would only make things worse.

_Perhaps it has already happened, and for this reason he is late. _She knew he had completed his assigned task, because she always knew. It was the Night Mother's gift to every one who sent out her Brothers and Sisters to do the will of Sithis. But Ocheeva could not tell exactly how that had come to pass, or what had happened before or afterwards. She only knew that Lord Bendorith was dead, and many of his guards with him. It could very well be that the vampire Dree was destroyed, and Gogron had lost time disposing of the ashes and gathering up the effects_. And collecting himself enough to pretend he does not care. Certainly no one else will - _

This thought was interrupted by the creak of the front door. Somewhere behind her Ocheeva heard the Dark Guardian pause in its patrol, bones clicking in its spine as it swayed in place. A puff of cold air wafted in, and with it came a very familiar scent of armor, horsehair, and Orc.

Also, unfortunately, there came the metallic stink of vampire. _And she does not smell the same as before, _Ocheeva thought. The sound of clumping boots reached her next, and the soft patter of shoes. _The tang of iron is sharper. _

Gogron stepped into view a moment later. He walked slowly, and the sizable dents in his breastplate said that he had not come off entirely unmarked.

"Welcome home," Ocheeva said. The warmth in her voice was real. "Alas, it seems I cannot offer you the bonus."

"Never can," Gogron said, waving his free hand. The gesture was less expansive than usual, perhaps because his beaten armor limited his mobility. His other hand held saddlebags and a canvas sack. "Give the gold to Dree so she can count out her fifty percent."

"What?" said Dree.

"You killed the mark," Gogron said. "Only reason I'm even keeping half is because I got you there."

"I couldn't exactly have fought off twenty guards myself," Dree said.

"Then it _was _you who killed Lord Bendorith?" Ocheeva asked. She watched Dree, head on one side, as she held out the small purse of gold. Dree took it without touching her, but Ocheeva felt the cold that seemed to radiate from her skin. The smell of iron was stronger. It was not the smell of blood, but of blood distilled to its essence, blood being used up like oil in a lamp.

"She did it," Gogron said. "And she struck first. She's done her part for us." His usual good humor was muted, Ocheeva noted with growing concern.

"You have done well, Brother," she said. "Congratulations to you, Dree. I can see that your kill has changed you."

The young mer's pinched face looked momentarily startled, then resumed its expression of permanent wariness. "You can? How?"

"Could be because your eyes are glowing," Gogron said.

"They are?"

"When you stand in the dark," Ocheeva said. "I have at times seen Vicente Valtieri do the same. It is well."

Dree looked slightly disturbed, and said nothing. Ocheeva noted this in puzzlement. _Did she believe she could die, and not change? _

"Anything else, Sister?" Gogron said, peering down at her through the gloom. "You doing all right?"

"This one is well, Brother," Ocheeva said formally. "Go and rest."

"Thanks," he said. Gogron bowed his head with a courtesy quite at odds with his normal persona. _Sometimes when he is very tired, he forgets. _He limped off toward the living quarters with the undersized vampire in tow. Ocheeva watched her run ahead to tug the great door open.

_Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps she will be one of us, after all._

Somewhere behind her, the Dark Guardian went on about his business. The torches guttered and smoked, and bones rattled softly in the dark.

_---_

Early next morning, Dree was awakened by the absence of any sound of footsteps.

She lay still for a moment, listening.

She could hear Gogron snoring, and beyond him the soft breathing of M'raaj-Dar and Antoinetta Marie. Someone had told her Teinaava was on an assignment. So the fourth person whose heart she heard beating was not Teinaava. It was not Ocheeva, who was also Argonian and breathed a little differently.

_It's a Human. And he's not making any sound at all._

Dree slid carefully out from under the bed on the opposite side from the sound. She drew her knife slowly as she crouched beside the bed. She thought about risking a glance up over the edge. Then a cold, cold voice said,

"Put away your weapon, Vilindriel. Haven't you been expecting me?"

She stood up slowly. At first she saw nothing, just a ripple in the air. Then the chameleon spell dropped away, and she was looking at a fairly ordinary man in a black robe. _Ordinary except that his eyes are _orange, Dree thought.

"Are you the Speaker?" she said.

"I am Lucien LaChance," he said. "And you are a cold-blooded killer. Welcome to the Dark Brotherhood, Vilindriel."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Dree did not return to sleep when LaChance was gone. Nerves could not keep her awake any more, but the thought of sleeping now held no appeal whatsoever. It was obscurely comforting that she heard the door latch _click _as he left the living quarters. _I wonder how often a Speaker ever kills anyone_, she thought. Even so, she listened until she could no longer hear his heartbeat. It was faster than Gogron's. _Humans are faster. Argonians are slower. Mer have that little skip in mid-beat that I never noticed until I stopped having one._

Gogron and M'raaj-Dar and Antoinetta still slept. Dree looked around at them, seeking reassurance. M'raaj-Dar looked peevish even in his sleep. The whiskers on his muzzle twitched from time to time. Antoinetta looked like a sleeping princess, which was exactly the opposite of reassuring. _I don't even want to _know _what she's dreaming about. _Dree stared down at Gogron gro-Bolmog. He slept in his trousers as usual, lying on his side. The bruises on his powerful upper body looked worse in the dim light. The shadows seemed to magnify them, moving and stretching as he breathed.

_Twice as old as I am, and three times as big, _Dree thought. _And he's a killer. He'd be one even if he wasn't here. But even with that, I'm glad he found me first. I wonder what Valtieri would have done. I'm pretty sure about Marie._

She padded over to the cupboards and opened one. There were a few strawberries inside, and a loaf of bread. Dree selected a few of the berries and sat against the wall on the floor to eat them. There was a wooden table with benches, but she didn't want to sit there. She'd sat up to a table to eat maybe five times in her life. It never felt right.

The strawberries were a little soft. Dree didn't mind. She was licking the last of the juice off her fingers when she heard the door open. She listened to the soft steps of someone walking down the hall. _Beating heart. It's not Valtieri. And the heart sounds like..._

_Like another mer._ _And it's still Middas, isn't it? I know who that is._

Dree got up as quietly as possible and sat at the table. She didn't want to surprise an assassin. For that matter, she wasn't keen on explaining why she was sitting on the floor, either. Especially not to someone she had learned to dislike without even meeting them.

The Elf trod around the corner. She wore the same dark form-fitting armor as Marie and Ocheeva. The hood was up, but wisps of blond hair escaped at its edges. Dree took note of the silver bow slung over her shoulder. She carried a quiver of arrows in one black-gloved hand.

"Are you Telaendril?" Dree said.

The Elf pushed her hood back smoothly as she turned. "Yes," she said. "I heard we might have a new Sister." Dree blinked. She'd been expecting... _Someone beautiful. Someone really evil looking. _Telaendril was neither of those things. Her hair was blond and her eyes were green, like many Bosmer, but her face was as plain as Dree's. _As mine used to be, _Dree corrected herself silently. _Before I started looking like a cadaver. _Her jaw was oddly square and her forehead was rather low. Her voice when she spoke was soft and gentle, the very picture of what a Bosmer ought to sound like.

"I'm Dree," Dree said.

Telaendril looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "So you _are _a vampire," she said. She set the quiver of arrows on the floor, went to the cupboard, and looked inside. "Hm. Vicente and M'raaj-Dar have gotten the apples already. They never seem to last." She broke off a section of the loaf of bread and snagged a bottle of ale from another cupboard. Dree watched as she applied a bottle opener with delicate fingers. There was distinct callus on her right thumb and two fingers.

"You must have been an archer a long time," Dree said.

Telaendril followed Dree's gaze. "Yes, it leaves its mark. The gauntlets are rather too conspicuous to wear in daylight, when I do most of my work." She took another sip of ale. "And what do you do, Sister?"

Dree shrugged. "I don't know yet," she said.

"Really?" Telaendril said. She glanced up from the piece of bread, green eyes innocent. "I heard you were gaining some skill as Gogron's squire."

"Squire?" Dree said.

"Yes. He is _such _a brute, isn't he?" Telaendril said sweetly. "I'm afraid he does take some watching, especially when he gets excited. But you'll know that by now, of course."

Dree received the impression that _excited _might mean something different here than she understood it to mean. _And if it does, I don't want to know._ "He chased me up a tree yesterday," she said.

"You must be a swift runner," Telaendril said. She sipped again.

"Sometimes," Dree said.

"Hm. Well, I'm sure you have plenty of other useful skills," Telaendril said. "Beggars, as they say, can't be choosers. Good night, Sister."

"Good night," Dree said. She watched Telaendril drop the ale bottle into a dustbin and move over to one of the beds. The Elf did not look at Gogron at all.

_I thought I'd hate her, _Dree thought. _She's angry. But she doesn't seem crazy. That has to count for something down here._

"Ha," Dree said to herself, and went to wander through the main Sanctuary. Ocheeva and Valtieri passed her, deep in conversation. She eventually found a book and sat down. The letters were hard to puzzle out, but she was making progress. After a while, M'raaj-Dar shoved open the door to the living quarters and stalked across to the practice room.

"Evening," Dree said.

"Bah," said M'raaj-Dar. Dree shrugged, got up, and went back into quarters.

Everything seemed quiet. Gogron and Marie were still asleep. Telaendril slept also (so said her tranquil pulse). She had chosen the bed that was farthest away from Gogron's. Dree glanced wistfully at the cupboards. Maybe there was a strawberry she'd missed somewhere. It would be worth it to taste something that wasn't bloo – wasn't bl – _Oh, Oblivion, _Dree thought.

A pair of boots stuck out at an angle beside one of the cupboards. They were soft leather, unscuffed by much outdoor wear. Boots for a man of no unusual size. A pair of dark trousers draped neatly over the tops of them, unstirred by any movement of whomever was inside them.

"Valtieri?" Dree said. If there was an answer, the snoring drowned it out. Dree edged around the table, improving her view without getting any closer. The old vampire sat slumped against the gray stone, his head against the cupboard. His skin was marble-white. A straight line of dark red ran down from one corner of his mouth, so thin that Dree couldn't smell it. _Or the blood of an old one has no scent. _His eyes were open, but black-red ichor had gathered in the outer corners, as if he were weeping. As Dree watched, he blinked slowly. A drop of burgundy slid down one cheek.

"Gogron," Dree said urgently. The snoring stopped behind her. She crouched in front of Valtieri, afraid to touch him. _If he dies, someone will think it was me. They all have to know how much I hate him._

"What happened?" she said. Valtieri's eyes twitched toward the cupboard. Dree looked, and saw the apple lying under it. He'd only taken a single bite. She started to reach for it.

_"No." _Dree jerked her hand back at the startling hiss. Vicente bared his teeth. There was dark blood on those, too. "Do... not... touch..."

"'S going on?" said Gogron's voice behind her. Dree might have sighed in relief, if breathing had come more naturally.

"I think he's been poisoned," Dree said. "What do we do?"

"I'll take him to his room," Gogron said, entirely calm. "You get M'raaj-Dar. He can heal. Then tell Ocheeva."

"Yes," Dree said, and scrambled up and out of the way. "He said don't touch the apple."

"Okay," Gogron said, but Dree was already gone. Two seconds later she slammed open the door to the practice room.

"M'raaj-Dar," she said. "Valtieri needs you."

"What is it now?" the Khajiit said, shooting a cold glance over his shoulder. He cast another ball of white magicka at the target, which fizzed. "This one tries to practice and there is always someone - "

"He might die," Dree said.

M'raaj-Dar's ears flickered up, then down. "What?"

"Gogron's taking him to his room," Dree said.

"Hmph," the Khajiit said, but he padded swiftly out of the room. Dree went back out into the Sanctuary, looking around for Ocheeva. _Don't look. Listen. There's a hearbeat over..._ Dree scampered past the Dark Guardian and stopped in the shadow of a pillar. Ocheeva was very still, easy to miss in her dark armor. _Argonians are cold-blooded. They don't fidget._

"Something happened to Vicente Valtieri," Dree said. "I think someone poisoned him."

Dree heard the startled intake of breath. "What? In my Sanctuary? Who would dare?"

"I don't know," she said. "I found him in the living quarters."

Ocheeva spoke without emotion, but Dree listened to her heart speed up. "You were right to tell me, smallest Sister. Go and find M'raaj-Dar at once."

"I already did," Dree said. "Gogron told me. They're probably in his room already."

"Then you've done well," Ocheeva said, and slid past her as easily as a shadow. Dree, watching her go, realized she'd never seen her run before. _I thought she'd be slower. But then, Teinaava did say they grew up together. _She followed, now curious to see what would happen. _And if _he_ does die, I want to know it._

---

Ocheeva stood beside M'raaj-Dar, watching him try to heal Vicente Valtieri. He had tried a spell for curing poison already without success. Ocheeva knew just enough magic to know how serious that was. _It should have worked. _The Imperial lay on the marble altar on which he normally slept, startlingly white in the dark room. The walls were close. Even with the spartan furnishings, it seemed crowded with Ocheeva and M'raaj-Dar on either side of the slab. She could feel others watching. She did not turn to look.

Blood ran slowly from the corners of Vicente's eyes. M'raaj-Dar held out his hand palm-downward and whispered something, and blue light spread in a fine net over the vampire's body. He bared his teeth and turned his head away. The bleeding went on. Tiny spots of black-red discolored the marble beside his brown hair.

_"Enough,"_ Vicente whispered. "Fool." His voice was ragged. It had been a long time since Ocheeva had heard him sound so old.

"He is right," M'raaj-Dar said. "It does him harm, and no good. In this condition, the light from a more powerful spell will kill him." He did not sound particularly sorry, but then, most of the other Brothers and Sisters were on some level uncomfortable with the vampire. Ocheeva had known him for all of her time at the Sanctuary. Everyone had the reaction. Some people got over it. Some didn't.

Vicente moved his head to one side, a gesture of faint dismissal.

"There is something else we can try," Ocheeva said.

M'raaj-Dar stared at her without comprehension. Valtieri understood it first. He bared his teeth. "Not enough... in your... entire body," he said. He did not breathe between words. He simply stopped talking, as if to gather his strength.

"What about Gogron gro-Bolmog?" Ocheeva said. Behind her, someone made a sound, the sound a person would make hissing with her hand over her mouth. Gogron's voice shushed her.

"No," Valtieri said. "You... and Marie... and Teinaava."

"Everyone out," Ocheeva said, without looking away from him. "Send Antoinetta Marie. Dree, find that apple and keep it."

"Are you certain - " M'raaj-Dar began.

"Go," Ocheeva said. She did not speak loudly, but he flinched as if she had. A moment later, she heard the doors close behind him.

"Wrist," Valtieri said.

"Yes," Ocheeva said. She stripped off her right gauntlet and sat on the edge of the slab, hitching her tail off to one side.

"Alone?" Vicente said. Even as haggard as he currently sounded, the irony in his tone was very familiar. "Rather... foolish..."

Ocheeva moved further over, so that she could cradle his head in her lap. "This one knows you well, old man," she said. "This one has reason to believe in your restraint." She pressed her wrist over his lips, forestalling any reply. "Besides," Ocheeva said, as Vicente sank his teeth in between the small scales. "One does not serve the god without sacrifice."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Dree stood in the corner of the hallway, watching the door to Valtieri's room. After a moment Antoinetta Marie jogged easily up to the door and went inside. A few minutes later she came out, moving slowly. Dree watched as she reached out a hand for the wall and leaned there.

"Are you all right?" Dree said.

"Oh, never better," Marie said, and twitched a friendly grin over her shoulder. From someone else, it might have been sarcasm. _Not from Antoinetta. _"Though I am so _very _disappointed that Ocheeva insisted on the cure afterwards. But you shouldn't loiter, Sister dear. Your blood won't do for another of the Gifted." She stood still a moment more, then made her way quietly up the hall. Dree hesitated. _I want to know. But if Marie saw me even in the dark, somebody else would, too._

She retraced Antoinetta's steps into the Sanctuary. M'raaj-Dar must have gone back to his spell practice, because the occasional dull _boom _came from behind the practice room's double doors. Telaendril was on her way to the opening of the well, bow in hand.

"You're leaving?" Dree said.

"Middas is over, and I still have work to do," Telaendril said. "A sad way to lose Vicente, but the god takes us all. I wonder who would want to poison a Brother?" Green eyes looked speculatively on Dree. "Oh, well. I suppose we'll never know." A moment later she was up the ladder and out of sight.

Dree went to look for Gogron. As expected, he was in the living quarters, putting on his armor. He looked up as she scuffed her foot on a flagstone.

"You find the apple again?" he said.

"Yes," Dree said. "I wrapped it in some sacking and put it in your box." She nodded at the chest next to the bed. Gogron raised a heavy eyebrow.

"That was locked," he said.

"You know those lockpicks we found?"

Gogron looked at her blankly for a second. Then he chuckled. "Good, very good. But you'd better save them. You ought to have your own box, now you're a Sister."

"I thought you were asleep," Dree said.

"Yeah, but I'm not deaf, and you weren't exactly whispering. Everyone else probably knows, too." He finished wedging an enormous foot into an even more enormous boot. "You thirsty?"

"We'll be down here at least another day, right?" Dree said.

"Sure. Maybe longer."

"Then no, thank you," Dree said. "Not until I have to."

"Still thinking about that last one?" Gogron said.

"Yes," Dree said. "Gogron, you know I didn't poison Vicente, right?"

Gogron pulled on his gauntlets. He looked at Dree. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but he barely had to look up. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

Dree sat down on the bed opposite. "It's not that I don't want him dead. I do. But I wouldn't do it that way. I wanted it to be when I was better, _because _I was better."

Gogron nodded. "I figured," he said. "And I don't think you know that much about poisons. From what M'raaj-Dar was saying, that apple's something way out of the common."

"Maybe it wasn't even meant for him," Dree said. "Maybe someone just put it in the cupboard a while ago, and he was saving it so M'raaj-Dar wouldn't get it."

"Wouldn't be surprised," Gogron said. "Weren't any apples in the cupboard when we got home. I checked both of them."

"You would, wouldn't you," Dree said, smiling faintly. _Sithis, what if Gogron had gotten there before Vicente? At least no one will think he did it, _Dree thought. _He'd never poison anybody. They've got to know that, by now. _"Maybe someone snuck in," Dree said.

"Snuck in _here?_" Gogron said. "There's only two ways in, Dree. And Ocheeva spends a lot of her time wandering around the Sanctuary. I've seen her call Lucien by name when he came in here invisible. Not even Teinaava can sneak past her."

Dree nodded slowly."I hate this," she said.

"Me, too," said Gogron. He looked at her for a second, old-gold eyes unreadable. Then he said, "I'm going to go practice. Want to come?"

"Maybe in a couple of minutes," Dree said. _There's something I need to know. _Gogron nodded equably, picked up his axe, and went with loud step out of the living quarters.

Dree watched him go. _People would see me if I waited in the hallway, _she thought. _But when I was in _his_ room, I remember a trap door in the ceiling. I'll bet it goes to Ocheeva's room._ The Sanctuary must surely have been built with a vampire in mind, to have that winding hall to the lowest room and another one right over it. _I wonder how old _he _actually is._

She waited a few moments, until she was sure Gogron would be in the practice room, then crept out through the Sanctuary. She saw no one, and more importantly, heard no one as she crossed to Ocheeva's room. She tugged one of the double doors open as silently as possible. It wasn't locked. _Of course, _Dree thought. _Stealing is against the Tenets, and even Ocheeva probably doesn't have anything worth risking that Spirit of Sithis thing for. I'll wager Lucien Lachance has some things worth stealing. I wonder what _his _security is like._

The room was darker than the Sanctuary. Dree, remembering back to a girlhood that seemed ages ago, understood: _Ocheeva grew up somewhere candles were expensive, and things burned easily. Same as me. _The room was sparsely furnished, without much more than a bed, a desk, and a couple of wooden barrels. And, like the room beneath, it was long and narrow. Dree went softly over to the round metal hatch in the back of the room. The ceiling sloped downward here, so that she had to stoop. Here she hesitated. _I don't know if that trapdoor creaks. It would figure._ She lay facedown on the floor and pressed one pointed ear to the surface instead.

" - _Completed his task?" _said the vampire's voice. The sound was still ragged, but it was clear.

_"...course. Teinaava always..." _the rest was lost. Dree frowned. The metal seemed to create a strange echo, muffling the voices more than a wooden trapdoor would have. Then, too, Ocheeva was sounding a little weak herself. _Blood loss, no doubt. _Vicente Valtieri said something that might have ended in _"greet him," _but the answer was inaudible.

The sound of the door opening and closing, however, was quite clear. Dree waited a few moments, then unfastened the trapdoor. It _did _creak when she opened it, but only a little. She put her head down and looked around. Ocheeva wasn't far off, the but the sound of her pulse was muffled, retreating. Vicente still lay on the slab, staring at the ceiling with carmine eyes. Someone had taken the trouble to wipe the blood from his face, but he was just as gaunt, just as white as before.

Dree lowered herself into the room. There was a tricky moment as she hung by her fingers with one hand and pulled the trapdoor shut with the other, and at the end of it she hit the ground with a tiny _thump._

"I have been expecting you, child of Sithis," said the other vampire. He did not look around. _Of course he knows who it is. I have no pulse. He took it from me._

"Have you?" Dree said. She approached the slab slowly. A claymore in a sheath leaned against the wall not far from the marble altar, conspicuously out of reach. Vicente Valtieri did not move.

"Is it not a perfect opportunity?" he said softly. Now he let his head fall to the side so that he could see her. Red eyes transfixed her, but she would not be pierced this time. Dree set her palms against the edge of the slab and leaned forward. Vicente had to turn his head again, to look up at her.

"For what?" she said.

Vicente smiled tightly. "Tsk, child, we both know for what." He paused. A living person might have drawn a deep breath, but he was very still. "I'm alone. I am weak. If I die now, I will fall to ashes. They will believe I simply succumbed."

"I don't think Ocheeva would," Dree said, equally softly. "And I know Gogron wouldn't. But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe I _did _know whose well I fell down that day. Maybe I came for you, and I don't care if I do have to face the god's wrath afterwards." She smiled humorlessly, showing him her new teeth. "I hope you've been thinking about that, sire of mine. I hope you've been thinking of it every single day since I got here. But you weren't afraid, were you? Because I'm weaker than you." She dropped the smile. "Or I was."

"You want to see me show fear," Valtieri said. His smile was still in place, but it was much colder. "It won't work."

"No, it wouldn't," Dree said. She still leaned over him, but didn't touch. "Because you're not afraid of anything, are you? You wouldn't even try to call for help. You don't believe anything can kill you. You are easily the most arrogant creature I've ever met in my whole life, and I've seen some. But actually I didn't come to see you beg, Vicente. I want you to answer a question."

Valtieri frowned fleetingly. Lines tightened and relaxed across his forehead in a second. "I have yet to refuse you any answer," he said. "Speak."

"Why did you tell me not to touch that apple?"

Valtieri raised his eyebrows. A very small drop of blood leaked from the corner of one eye, but he seemed to ignore it. "I beg your pardon?"

"When I found you," Dree said. "You told me not to pick up the poisoned apple. Why would you do that?"

"You came here to ask me _that?"_

Dree nodded. She had to resist an urge to laugh as she looked at his face. He looked outraged, as if it were truly offensive that she'd sneaked in without planning to kill him. "It's the only thing I've seen you do that didn't make sense," she said. "You like giving me little hints, because you know it's irritating. You follow the rules, because it's not what everyone would expect a vampire to do. And you'll drink in other people's life to keep yours, but only the people you think are deserving of your attention, because if things went wrong we couldn't have Gogron or M'raaj-Dar turn into what _you _are. They're not good enough for you. And me..." She reached up to tug at the tip of one ear. "I embarrass you, right? So common. Clumsy. Unworthy. So why would you try to keep me from getting myself hurt?"

Valtieri said nothing for a long time. Dree stood quietly and waited. The red tear slid down his temple and dripped off onto the marble slab, but he made no move to wipe it away.

Dree was about to speak again when Valtieri suddenly grinned, pushed himself up onto his elbows, and kissed her on the forehead. She stared down at him, stunned, as he fell back onto the slab. His face looked no healthier, but it was suddenly much younger. "Far too curious for your own good," he said. "You really are my offspring. I think that ought to be enough reason, don't you?"

Dree opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. No sound came out.

"Do hand me a handkerchief, will you?" Vicente Valtieri said. "I really can't abide blood in my hair."

There was no thump at all behind her, but Dree suddenly understood. "Ocheeva," she said as she turned. The Argonian was just closing the trapdoor behind her. _I'm an idiot. Of course he wouldn't send her away when he knew I was coming. She must have run all the way around to the other room, and I wouldn't be able to hear her through that trapdoor. I wasn't trying to use the hunter's sight. I never thought of it._

"Your sincerity is pleasing to hear, Sister," Ocheeva said. She went to the room's small wooden desk, extracted a handkerchief, and went to hand it to Vicente. She moved slowly, but she did not stumble. _But then, she's known a lot more years of hard discipline than Marie. _"Did you find what you came for?"

"More or less," Dree said.

"Then go. I am tired, and I expect Teinaava at any time."

"Yes, Sister," Dree said, and departed while she still had a tatter of dignity left. She paused outside the door to collect herself. The shadows in the corner of the hall might hide a small Bosmer, but they were completely inadequate to conceal a large Orc. Besides, the armor shone.

"Gogron," Dree said. "Why are you standing there? Why are you standing there with an _axe _in your hand?"

"Waiting," Gogron said. He put up the weapon and started toward the Sanctuary. "I followed you. Then I saw Ocheeva slide around back up to her room. Seemed odd."

"I didn't hear you," Dree said, walking quickly to keep up with him.

"I waited behind the training room door. You had kind of a funny look and I figured you might do something stupid," he said blandly.

_Sithis. His heart isn't even beating faster. _Dree glared up at him. "And then what?" she said. "I'm pretty sure I'd have been dust about a half-second afterwards, if I'd really tried to kill him. She was waiting for me."

They walked out into the low room with its smoking torches. Gogron shrugged. "Probably," he said. "But she's a little slow right now. With both of us, there'd be a chance."

"Not much of one," Dree said. "And why even bother? You haven't known me a month yet, Gogron. I've been drinking your blood all this time and I've never done a thing for you, except kill one Altmer."

Gogron sat down on a bench, so that they were almost eye to eye. Looking down into his eyes was an odd sensation. From this angle, she could see that one of his tusked underteeth had a chipped end. "You know how long I've been here?" he said. "Nigh on to ten years. I was in the Arena for part of that, because Lucien wanted me to learn to use an axe. I've only been doing jobs for the Sanctuary for maybe six. It wasn't going to last."

Dree stared at him, completely at a loss. "What?"

"That one Altmer would be the death of me sometime," Gogron said. He said it without emotion, as if it was something he'd been over many times. "Or one Orc, or one Imperial, or one Khajiit. Doesn't really matter. When I'm like that, I've got no control. I don't remember who it is I'm supposed to kill, I just kill whatever's there. Somebody would get away, sooner or later, who'd seen my face. And keeping the Sanctuary secret is one of the Tenets. If the Legion caught me, I'd be out of the Brotherhood."

"You could get back in," Dree said. "You just have to fight the Spirit and win, right?"

"Yeah," Gogron said. "But if you're caught by the Legion, there's no knowing what you might end up saying. Lucien couldn't afford to take that chance. I needed somebody here to make sure it didn't happen." He sat back against the wall, eliciting a faint _clank _from the axe. "I needed you," he said.

Dree sat down beside him. _You can't be out of breath, because it's technically impossible, _she thought. _Get hold of yourself. _"How could you know I'd be worth it?" she said. "The first time you saw me, I looked like a cinder."

Gogron smiled slightly. "I figured it was worth a try," he said.

Dree, who had never been _needed_ in her entire life, struggled silently with herself. She had very little education in books, and hardly more in the school of personal interaction. She didn't know what you were supposed to say when you felt like _this. _She wanted to die. She wanted to live. She wanted to kick him for using her, and kiss him for thinking she was worth using. (That last one gave her particular trouble, given her background with the opposite sex.) She wanted... _Oblivion with it. Who knows what I want?_ The more enduring and practical Dree within finally exerted some control.

"You won't be sorry," she said. "I won't leave. Not ever."

"Oh, never's a long time," Gogron said.

"Not for me," said the vampire Dree.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

_Per recent reviews, it might be helpful to repeat my earlier note and remind the reader that Dree is not meant to represent the player character – this story is based on a possible Dark Brotherhood arc in which the PC never joined up._

Teinaava knew something was wrong the moment he stepped out of the well.

It was not unusual for the Sanctuary to be very quiet in the middle of the day. Assassins' work often requires them to keep odd hours, and nearly everyone would be sleeping then. Not Ocheeva, of course, but that went without saying. No, what warned him was the smell.

There were always faint undertones of blood in the Sanctuary, beneath the fug of old smoke and dank stone. If nothing else, Antoinetta Marie's practice habits tended to reinforce it. _But every race's blood is different to the trained nose. _And few noses were as well trained as Teinaava's. _Lucien saw to that. _Vicente Valtieri's own blood had a scent all its own, the tang of corrupt iron like a sword gone to rust. Someone had been dripping it on the floor. The trail's direction was very distinct. Teinaava turned and went directly to the old vampire's room.

He opened the door without knocking and slid inside. As expected, Ocheeva stood near the door. Teinaava did not freeze when he saw her face. He'd lost all such dramatic reactions a very long time ago. Instead, he looked around to see what was wrong. Vicente Valtieri looked back from his slab, pale and gaunt. The smell of ancient blood was stronger. Something else underlay it, something sharp and unfamiliar. Teinaava's nostrils flared.

"What has happened, Sister?" he said.

"He was poisoned," Ocheeva said. As usual when she was worried, she was very curt. "You will see the apple later, but first your help is needed."

"What will this one do?" Teinaava said, returning formal respect. The set of Ocheeva's shoulders changed ever so slightly as she relaxed.

"Nothing seems to heal him," she said wearily. "Marie and I have given him to drink, but he is little better."

"Then I will give also," Teinaava said at once. _I am larger. I have more to spare._

"If this does no good," Ocheeva said to Vicente, "I will send M'raaj-Dar."

"I suppose I'm in no position to insist," Vicente said drily. "Much as I loathe a mouthful of Khajiit fur." He paused. "But not Gogron."

"Not yet," Ocheeva said. Teinaava went to lean one hip against the slab, holding out his hand.

"One does not trespass on another's preserve," Vicente said. The Imperial reached up one hand to turn Teinaava's wrist slightly - his fingers were cold, even to an Argonian - and bit. It stung, but the sensation of blood leaving his body was much worse. He held still irregardless. Teinaava could lie without making a sound while someone stuck pins under all the scales on his back (and had). Besides, he was certain Ocheeva had not flinched when it was her turn.

He turned his head to look at her and saw her watching. She smiled tiredly, showing sharp teeth all the way up her projecting snout. "Sibling rivalry is a hard habit to break," she said.

"Even among Shadowscale," Teinaava said. "Do you know who was responsible?" It must be his imagination that blood was flowing faster down through his arm.

"Not yet," Ocheeva said. "Vicente tells me the apple is one he found in the cupboard some days ago. Even Telaendril is not cleared. All I know is that it cannot have been an outsider."

"No, of course not," Teinaava said. He did not have to say anything else. They were both thinking the same thing. _And no one is more likely to have done it than we two. Gogron knows nothing of poisons, and M'raaj-Dar's art is not equal to this. It is difficult to say it of Marie and Telaendril, but if they could make a poison powerful enough to harm a vampire, they have hidden that knowledge well._

"Does Lucien know?" Teinaava said. Ocheeva shook her head.

"Not yet," she said. "I had hoped to find the culprit before I speak to him again."

Teinaava nodded. He was beginning to feel lightheaded, which was also ridiculous. It is not possible to lose blood very quickly through just one wrist. _But a vampire drinks blood as an effigy. It is your life he is taking. _He pushed that thought away and concentrated on the more immediate one. Teinaava was, necessarily, not a sentimental man. He knew what would happen if Lucien LaChance thought the Sanctuary had been compromised. It would not matter that he had raised Ocheeva and Teinaava from hatching. _Always the master, nothing more. _And there had been suspicions of late, Teinaava was certain of it. Ocheeva said little to him, and nothing that was inappropriate, but he understood it all the same.

The room seemed colder, suddenly. Teinaava looked down at Vicente Valtieri, whose complexion seemed to be improving just a little. He felt distinctly dizzy now, but he was not afraid. _You will not flinch, _said the chill voice of Lucien LaChance inside his head. _You will not stumble. These things are weakness, and the weak exist to die at our hands. _Spots began to appear in front of his eyes. He was leaning much more heavily against the slab when Valtieri finally detached his lips from Teinaava's wrist. Dimly, Teinaava heard the other man sit up.

"I'm afraid I've been less gentle with him than I was with you, Ocheeva," Vicente said. (The sound had an odd echo, as if the vampire were shouting down a well.) "He may need your assistance."

"Then I win," Teinaava said, grinning. He straightened slowly, waiting for the dizziness to pass. "And I do _not _require your help, Sister."

Ocheeva snorted. "Only because I went first, idiot. And if you collapse, _I _win."

"Argonians are known to resist poison rather well," Vicente said. "And Lucien once told me an interesting tale regarding you in particular, Teinaava." Fabric rasped as he slid off the other side of the slab. "I had hoped some of that resistance would transfer with your blood."

"I'm surprised he told you that," Ocheeva said, raising scaly brows.

"He was rather proud of himself for having thought of it to begin with, I gathered," Valtieri said.

"I did not pass the test," Teinaava said, breathing carefully. With an effort, he could keep the weakness out of his voice. "I did not detect the poison he gave me until it was too late."

"But you survived," Vicente said. "And so, it appears, will I. For that, I am in your debt." Teinaava listened to the sound of his booted feet on the stone floor, deliberately making a sound as he came around to stand beside Ocheeva. "And yet I have to wonder, Brother. If you had poisoned one of us, would you do as you have just done? It would take a very clever and a very cold-blooded individual. But you _are _Shadowscale. And you _are _Lucien's protegee."

"Tsk, Vicente," Ocheeva said. "If he were behaving as you say, he could easily have poisoned his _own _blood before he entered this room. To finish his work, depending on his own resistance to save him."

Teinaava laughed silently. "It would be very clever," he said, raising his head to look at them. "How _do _you feel now, Brother?"

"Very well, thank you," Vicente Valtieri said. He smiled tightly. His face had color now, but it was not quite right for an Imperial. He was still pale, and the flush on each cheekbone seemed more hectic than anything else. _But he stands._

"Then if I have poisoned you, I have done it poorly," Teinaava said. "Ocheeva, my Sister?"

"Yes, Brother."

"I still win," Teinaava said, and turned and walked on his own two feet out of the room. Never mind that he had to steady himself against the wall several times on his way to the Living Quarters. He rested in the smug assurance that Ocheeva did not see it.

All the same, he knew she had been worried. He'd just come in off a mission, and it was the first time she'd ever forgotten to pay him.

---

Dree heard Teinaava come and go, but only by listening for his pulse. He breathed more quietly than most of the others. _I really, really hope I never do anything to annoy one of those two, _Dree thought. _At least I know I can get _away _from Gogron when I have to._

She paused in her knife practice and glanced over at Gogron. The Orc was still hacking away at the practice dummy with his axe. The wood must surely be enchanted, because it did not splinter even when the weapon hit it edge-on. Gogron in his calmer incarnation did not miss often, but he was very deliberate in his movements. _Just another big Orc. Someone to be wary of, sure, but no more than man or mer. Not the demon-thing I saw the other day._

"What, getting tired already?" Gogron said, without looking around.

"No," Dree said. "Teinaava just came out of Valtieri's room." She went back to rehearsing what Marie had taught her on a couple of bales of straw Gogron had set upright. She'd drawn a rough figure with her fingers and soot. _One slash across the belly and back against the throat. Duck the sword. Stab the thigh. _

_"If there's too much armor, jab for the codpiece seam while you're down there," _Marie's voice said in her memory"_Like this – oh, good, quick evasion for a beginner. Cut the big tendon in the groin and he'll be flopping like a fish. But that's too far in, really. Too slow, when you can eviscerate with one blow. Tsk, that was sloppy. I could have gutted you like a fish instead of the shallow little cut I gave you..."_

"Hope it worked," Gogron said, and executed a flawless, if slow, spinning disarm. The dummy jangled. "Even if you hate Vicente, we can't really afford to lose him. He's got more experience than anybody else here."

"What does he do?" Dree said. She tried to remember the last combination she'd learned, then swore when she got it wrong. "_The thing about knife fights, dear Sister, is that they tend to be short..."_

"I mean, I've never seen him practice," Dree said.

"I think he practices in his room," Gogron said.

"With a _claymore?"_ Dree said. "You could stretch out your arms and touch both the walls in there. And there are no scratches on the furniture. I looked."

Gogron shrugged. His pauldrons clanked. He did not seem to be sweating, Dree noticed. "He's been a vampire more'n two hundred years. And he wasn't exactly a spring chicken when he became one. He's been practicing a long time, Dree. He's pretty good hand-to-hand, it comes to that."

"I guess he would be," Dree said. She did the combination correctly this time. _Ha. _"But what's he _do?_ I mean, does he ever leave the Sanctuary, except when he's thirsty?"

"Doesn't even do that very often," Gogron said. "Maybe once a year."

"Gods," Dree said, thinking of the thirst. _How does he stay sane?_

"He's mostly a resource for whoever's doing Ocheeva's job, from what I can figure out. We get a new one, he's usually the one they take orders from 'til they prove they can handle it. I worked for him my first year or so here. You were sort of a special case."

"I'm glad," Dree said. _I'll bet he'd just _love _to be giving me orders, the old leech._

"Yeah," Gogron said. They practiced in silence for a while.

"So," Dree said eventually. "It would actually make sense to poison him first."

"I guess," Gogron said. "I'd think whoever it was was aiming for me or M'raaj-Dar. We're probably the ones most likely to fall for that, with Telaendril out of town. Doubt it would work on one of the Argonians – they can smell poison from yards away - and everybody knows Marie hates fruit."

Dree almost said _I didn't, _and caught herself. "So what do you think they'll do now?"

Gogron stopped, lowered the axe, and turned to face her. The corners of his wide mouth turned down. "They've got it all their own way. Even if Teinaava can cure Vicente, he'll be weak afterwards. Like Ocheeva and Marie. More apt to miss things."

They looked at each other in grim silence.

"So what do we do?" Dree said. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Me, neither," said Gogron gro-Bolmog. "I wish I knew."

---

The day was a long one. Ocheeva sent M'raaj-Dar out on a quest (something Gogron told Dree seldom happened), and everyone else tended to go around in pairs. Teinaava and Antoinetta Marie rested for most of the day. Dree found the bitten apple and gave it to Ocheeva. Vicente Valtieri, now seemingly recovered, presented the Argonian with a whole one he'd been saving in his room. "It may not be poisoned," he said. "But I find I'm rather off apples for the present."

Light and dark were not much different in the Sanctuary, but the light from the well shaft gradually began to wane at last. By common consent, Ocheeva went out to get food, and she and Teinaava ate first. Everyone else seemed inclined to hesitate. Dree broke the stalemate by nipping some of the venison off Gogron's plate. It was gamy and tough, but it wasn't bad. _Still not thirsty. That's good._

Gogron went to bed not long after dinner. Dree wandered around the living quarters aimlessly, trying to keep an eye on him and on everyone else at the same time. Antoinetta Marie also went to bed early and appeared to fall asleep at once. Teinaava read for a while, reclining propped on a pillow. Vicente and Ocheeva retreated to their own rooms, no doubt to lock the doors. _If those doors _can _lock, _Dree thought. _I guess they could always shove something through the handles. Like a claymore, for instance._

She listened carefully as she meandered, but heard no extra heartbeats. _I'd really prefer it was an outsider. Somebody wandering around here invisible, say. _But that was very unlikely. If she didn't detect them, one of the Argonians surely would, by scent if nothing else.

_Maybe it was Lucien LaChance, _Dree thought. _He was in here before I found Vicente. I don't know anything about him. Would he poison his own Sanctuary? How exactly do things work in the Black Hand?_

Eventually, she dug her Barbarian's Alphabet out from under Gogron's bed and sat on the floor near him as she flipped through it again. _A is for Atronach. B is for Bungler's Bane... _She heard Antoinetta Marie fumbling around over by her bed. It struck Dree after a moment that it was more than a heartbeat she heard: _She's actually rustling around. That's not normal_. Dree set down the book and got up. Marie was levering herself upright using one of the bedposts. Her cheeks were unnaturally flushed. Teinaava seemed to be asleep in the next bed, oblivious to her struggle. Dree went quickly to put a hand under her elbow.

"Are you all right?" she whispered.

Marie leaned gratefully on her. "I'm afraid I must have caught something," she whispered back. "I'm terribly sorry to be a bother, but can you help me find a drink of water, Sister?"

Dree nodded and helped her move to sit on the nearest wooden bench. "I'll be right back," she said. "Let me get a cup."

It was then, just as she was turning her back, that Antoinetta Marie stabbed her in the base of the skull.

At least, that was what should have happened. Antoinetta was a little slow, her weakness not entirely feigned. Dree caught the sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. She twisted to one side. It wasn't enough: she was still facing half-away when the blade went in. The cold steel slid through the side of her throat, jerked up through her chin, and then caught on her jawbone. It only stung, at first. Dree seized Marie's wrist and jerked it unprofessionally downwards. The other woman did not lose her grip on the knife, and Dree watched with horror as a thin stream of blood from the nick in her artery sprayed Marie's grinning face. Her blood was almost black, but not as thin as Vicente's. _Funny, the things you notice when you know you're going to die. _

Dree tried to make a noise, call for help, but the knife had cut through her vocal cords on its way up and in. The sound that came out was somewhere between a rasp and a gurgle, barely audible. Her grip was weakening, and Marie had not let go of the knife, though her knuckles were white. "The Night Mother hears you, Sister," she whispered, smiling gently. "Give the god my love."

Dree shoved her hard to one side, staggered backwards, and snatched up a chair. She threw it at Gogron's bed with all her waning strength. It bounced off his legs on top of the coverlet. Antoinetta Marie rolled easily to her feet and came after Dree again, swift and decisive. Dree put the table between them, but she could go no further. Her own cold blood still spurted in a narrow stream from the gash in her throat, spattering the dark wood in front of her. (She knew there ought to be more blood than that. Maybe vampires bled more slowly.) Searching desperately for some chance, she cast her hearing wider, searching for Gogron's pulse. (How long before hearing would fail her? Seconds? Minutes?)

She recognized the regular drumbeat at about the same time Gogron's fist hit Marie. The slim woman was knocked sideways into the wall. She landed on her feet, shaking her head. "Oh, very good," she said quietly. "You _do _move _so _much better when you're not yourself. But then, you won't remember my saying that, will you? Any more than you'll speak and wake Teinaava. You can't. And it will take rather a lot to wake him, with the stuff I put in his ale. More poison just seemed dull."

Marie dodged to one side as Gogron's fist slammed into the wall next to her. She took a swipe at the Orc's kidneys on her way past. The knife left a deep slash, but it bled slowly. Gogron's heart went on, steady as a clock.

Dree tried to speak again. A sound like "Kkkkkk" was all that came out, but Gogron heard it. His head swiveled, and she saw his eyes. Red light glowed behind the gold. _Oh, Sithis. I really _am _going to die. _Dree tried to press down over the slash in her neck, but her fumbling fingers could not find the pinhead-sized gusher in the welter of gore from her chin.

"Now, that would be perfect," Marie said cheerfully, but still quietly. "You kill her, and I kill you. An excellent sacrifice, and entirely worthy."

Gogron snarled at her voice and lunged after her again. Dree fell onto one of the benches, trying to stay upright. _If Sithis can really hear me..._

_Let him kill her before I die._

Marie's knife drew a line of blood down Gogron's right arm. His backhand slap knocked her flying again. This time she managed to land on an empty bed and bounce back upright.

"You know, I'm really getting tired of that," she said reproachfully, and threw the knife.

It halted in midair between Marie and Gogron. Dree stared without understanding. Teinaava faded slowly into visibility, holding the blade with two fingers.

"This one was born under the Shadow," he said. "Have you forgotten?" Gogron stared from one of them to the other, growling deep in his chest.

"You didn't really drink it, did you," Marie said. She sounded, if anything, pleased with him. "Drat. I tried _so _hard to disguise the smell."

"You might have tried harder with the taste," Teinaava said, and threw the knife back.

Marie flung herself flat. The blade clattered against the wall behind her. She came up with it in her hand, but Teinaava was already upon her.

Dree tried to see what was going on, but the shadows in the room seemed to be growing thicker. No, that was Gogron. He'd turned his back to the blur of movement that was Marie and Teinaava and was coming toward her. His shadow covered her as he came between her and the torch. Dree pushed herself slowly onto her feet. She was starting to feel the pain, now, throbbing through her chin and throat. She'd always thought bleeding to death would be easier than this. Weren't you supposed to just fade out? _How long do I have? Long enough for him to bash my head in?_

She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to tell him she didn't blame him. But all that came out was the same sound: _Kkk kkkk._

There was no use running. She didn't try. Dree reached out her small hand as Gogron took a slow step toward her. Her fingers brushed his chin. His skin was hot, and the blood on her hand seemed icy by comparison. The Orc stopped at that cold touch, staring down at her. Dree watched as he raised one enormous fist. Far behind his eyes, the demon raged.

Gogron lowered his arm. Dree watched without comprehension as he blinked, black lashes fluttering. Then he snatched her up with both arms and shoved her face against his neck. Dree sank her teeth in, and for a long time there was nothing but the red tide roaring in her ears.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

_A/N: I took some artistic license with the apple poison. In real life, after all, toxins tend to affect different people a little differently – there's nothing that will kill everybody in half a second with exactly the same dose._

_Not that there are vampires and lizard people in real life, either. Oh, well._

Ocheeva could not sleep. She sat up in her room for a long time, reading and balancing the accounts. She'd forgotten to pay Teinaava. That would have to be done tomorrow, as soon as she could. _I still win, he said, _she thought, and smiled quietly to herself. _But he will sleep late. We still have no armor for our newest Sister. I wonder when Lucien LaChance plans to have it sent. _She'd half-expected, given the peculiar circumstances, that Lucien would either kill the vampire himself or give that order to Ocheeva.

"Will she take orders from Vicente Valtieri?" he'd asked her the previous day. Lucien's voice had a certain lack of tonal quality, but Ocheeva had learned to interpret one or two things. What surprised her most was that he genuinely did not seem interested. The concerns of the Sanctuary usually had his full attention. _But then, you know a Speaker has other concerns at such a time as this._

"She will obey the Tenets, Speaker," Ocheeva said. "But this one would rather not separate her from Gogron." She had spoken formally to him since her early teens. _He believes it is because I fear him. This is so. But it was from Lucien that I learned how useful the formalities can be, when there are things one keeps to oneself._

"It will slow him down, to be lumbered with a mere murderer," Lucien observed neutrally. Ocheeva, familiar with Lucien's neutral observations, thought carefully before speaking again.

"Perhaps," she said. "But this one believes he will serve better with her there. And he will keep her from straying. This one has no doubts of him," Ocheeva said. "This one might fault his understanding, but never his loyalty."

"Very well," Lucien LaChance said. "I will have the armor made. It will need to be small, of course."

"Yes, Speaker," Ocheeva said. "The Sanctuary is honored by your visit."

Lucien nodded curtly, and then he vanished from her view. She did not relax until she was sure he had left the building.

And then Vicente Valtieri had fallen ill. Ocheeva had to wonder if anyone else was inclined to draw a connection between those circumstances. But then, Vicente had been hiding the apple for a few days, by his own account. Lucien surely had not put it into the cupboard last week. Besides, she knew of no way Vicente could have brought the Speaker's wrath down on his head. He barely left the Sanctuary, and never for long. Ocheeva slept with the smell of iron-rot in her nostrils; even if he crept out silently, it would wake her.

That smell had been a comfort to her, some nights. Particularly after Lucien had brought her Telaendril and Antoinetta Marie. Vicente hated disorder above all things. He would be deeply annoyed if someone tried to commit murder in his Sanctuary. It sometimes struck Ocheeva as odd that he did not, in fact, seem to see it as _his _Sanctuary, though he had lived in that same room for a lifetime of men. _He has been here so long that he is grown into the stones like the roots of a tree. He does not own this place. He _is _this place._

At that moment, the trapdoor was flung open from beneath. Ocheeva was on her feet the same instant, watching Vicente practically levitate up into her room. He had not bothered to strap on the sheath, but he carried a naked sword in his hand.

"What, don't you smell it?" he said, raising his eyebrows, and he ran past her out the door. Ocheeva went after him, sniffing. She caught it two steps outside her threshold. _Vampire blood, and Orcish. _She drew the tiny sack of powder from her waistband and threw it accurately at the opening of the dry well. Black smoke puffed upwards. She hurried after Vicente.

"How did you - "

"At my age?" Valtieri said, and brushed open the door to the living quarters as though it were made of paper. "I could find the spilt blood of my own get a mile away." He paused where the hallway opened into the room. Ocheeva slid to a halt beside him, looking around quickly. Gogron gro-Bolmog was on his knees, folded up around the new Sister in his arms. Blood ran from a cut on his back and one on his arm, but neither appeared serious to Ocheeva's trained eye. Across the room, Teinaava and Marie were... _Fighting _wasn't the right term, because that would imply contact was being made. For the most part Marie was slashing at the Argonian with a knife, and he was simply avoiding her. _He is still weak. It's a wonder he can move at all._

"Marie, what are you doing?" Ocheeva said. But she knew. She'd known the instant she saw the two of them. All of it came together in one fatal _snap, _like the crack of a spine breaking.

Behind her, the Dark Guardian stood on the threshold, and she heard it hiss at the boundary it could not cross. Marie did not seem to hear her. But then, even as talented as she was with the knife, Antoinetta had only been an assassin for perhaps a decade. It didn't matter that she was armed and Teinaava was not.

"I ought to have known," Vicente said quietly. Ocheeva just shook her head. Marie did a neat backflip over a bed, creating a small space between herself and Teinaava. He paused, facing her across the counterpane.

"This one would like to know," he said. "You have lived with us a long time, Antoinetta. Why now?" Beside Ocheeva, Vicente silently drew back his arm.

Marie looked faintly surprised. "I would hardly have done it earlier, Brother. Why, I only just got the orders two weeks ag - "

It was at this point that a thrown claymore pinned her to the wall. Ocheeva did not see its flight. One moment the slender Breton stood in front of a bed, and the next she was pressed back to the stone with a handle protruding from her abdomen. She looked down at it, blinking.

"Orders," Ocheeva said. She came forward cautiously, but without drawing a weapon. "Orders from whom?"

Marie looked down at the claymore. There was an odd flush on her pale cheeks, two unnatural splashes of color. She wrapped both hands around the hilt and braced her feet against the floor. _It missed her spine, or she would not be moving her legs_. A dark stain began to leak out around the blade's edges, staining the linen shirt in which Antoinetta had presumably been sleeping. She tugged on the pommel without budging it.

"I should have put on my armor," she said, shaking her head. "But that would have given it away. And I went to all the trouble of rouging my cheeks, too..."

"My strength seems to be returning very slowly," Valtieri said, moving forward. "I missed your lungs. Would you like to know what's on the blade?"

Antoinetta chuckled as if he'd told a particularly good joke. "The juice from the apple, yes? I suppose that explains why it hurts as much as it does, when I ought not to feel anything."

"Soon enough," said Teinaava. He moved back to stand beside Ocheeva. Argonians cannot sweat, but she heard him panting, tired out by something that he would hardly have noticed yesterday. "If you want to ask questions, you had better do it quickly, Sister."

"Indeed," Antoinetta said. "Would someone mind removing this sword? The damage is done, and I've clearly failed by now."

"Lucien gave you the order, didn't he," Ocheeva said. There was no emotion in her voice. She felt none. _Somehow I knew this day was coming. I wonder if I would have caught her before she caught me. I wonder if Teinaava would have been able to stop her alone._

"Of course," Antoinetta said. "Who else?"

"Vicente?" Ocheeva said. The vampire sniffed. After a moment's scrutiny, he stepped forward and retrieved his claymore with a jerk. Antoinetta exhaled hard, bracing her feet. Blood welled from where the blade had been. The cloth of her garments darkened rapidly as fluid wicked through it.

"Why?" Ocheeva said.

"The Sanctuary must be purified," Antoinetta said. "To remove the traitor."

"Why would he believe there was a traitor _here?_" Ocheeva said.

Antoinetta shrugged, then winced. The flow of blood seemed to be increasing, sticking her trousers to her legs. "That _does _sting. Turnabout is fair play, hm?" she said, looking at Vicente.

"So it is," he said. "Though it surprises me that I can say so, I'm sorry."

"Really? Why?" Antoinetta said, raising her eyebrows. "I wasn't. I'm only the messenger." She shook her head as if concentration were suddenly an effort. Her wandering eyes found Ocheeva. "I believe Lucien said... the traitor must... be someone who knew him..." Antoinetta slid slowly down the wall, leaving a long smear behind her. Ocheeva crouched in front of her, staying at eye level. The woman's eyes were starting to look glassy, fixed on some point Ocheeva could not see. "I've failed," Antoinetta said.

"You'll have died following orders," Ocheeva said. "You will kneel before the god without shame."

"Yes," Marie said. "Suppose that... Will have to do..."

She sighed. Ocheeva waited, but she did not inhale again. She waited several moments longer – longer than a wounded woman could hold her breath – before she reached out to close Antoinetta's eyes.

Antoinetta Marie had never been beautiful in life. In death, her face was the face of a saint.

"Curious, that he chose her," Teinaava said. Ocheeva straightened up slowly. She felt suddenly old.

"Not at all," Ocheeva said. "She is the most loyal to Lucien himself. After we two, of course." _As far as Lucien LaChance knows, at least._

"Of course," Teinaava said, clearly sharing this thought.

"I suspect he felt your resolve might weaken," Vicente Valtieri said blandly. "When he ordered each of you to kill the other. It's the sort of thing that would occur to him."

"Yes," Ocheeva said. She turned from the dead to the living. Gogron gro-Bolmog lay on his back now, with Dree in her dark robe draped across his chest like an old curtain. He was plainly still breathing, but slowly. His eyes were closed. "Should we remove her, do you think?" she said to Vicente. The vampire looked up from wiping his sword clean on Antoinetta Marie's shirt.

"Not unless you want to kill her," he said.

"Will she kill Gogron?" Ocheeva said. Vicente got smoothly to his feet and came to stand beside her and Teinaava.

"I doubt it," he said. "If she'd seized on the artery, he'd be dead already."

"When she was wounded," Teinaava said. "It was Gogron whom she tried to awaken first. I do not think she would kill him."

"This one hopes you are right," Ocheeva said. "This one wishes to see no further deaths in her own Sanctuary."

"But elsewhere," Teinaava said. He placed one hand on Ocheeva's shoulder, leaning only slightly. "Sister."

Ocheeva raised her own hand to his other shoulder, providing support as well as accepting it.

"Yes, Brother," Ocheeva said. "Elsewhere."

"There is something else," Teinaava said softly. Through her hand she felt him tense as he tried not to sway.

"Yes?"

"You still owe me five hundred in gold. Plus a bonus."

---

Something was wrong.

The vampire in Dree snarled, and tried to ignore it. But it was the mer in her which spoke with the voice of command: _Listen._

Someone's heart was beating. It must be a big heart, because she could feel the _thud _in her bones each time it beat. It was slow, and heavy, like a kettle drum being played under a tent. _Getting slower. Wrong, _Dree thought, and finally regained enough of her own intelligence to realize that her lips were clamped onto someone's throat. It vibrated through her jaw with each exhalation. Her own heart jerked in her chest at the next beat, trying to resurrect itself with the sheer vigor of the other. The shock fully restored her control.

Dree broke the surface of the red river. _My throat still hurts. It's not healed all the way, _she recognized silently. _But any longer at this and I'll kill him. And I won't survive that, either. I know that now._

She opened her eyes. Gogron lay very still under her, breathing with difficulty. Dree slid off to one side hurriedly, wiping her mouth. The first time she tried to speak no sound came out. The ache in her throat intensified. She ignored it. The second time her voice was barely above a whisper, unrecognizable in her own ears.

"Gogron?"

Gogron gro-Bolmog opened his eyes. Dree could not remember the last time she'd cried, but she came awfully close at that moment.

"I told you so," said Vicente Valtieri's smug voice from somewhere behind her. Dree paid it no attention. She put a hand under Gogron's shoulders and levered him upright carefully. Later, she would wonder how she'd done that so easily, but _later _was a long ways off. For now, she watched as Gogron pulled his legs in and leaned over them. After a moment, he turned his head to look at her. Brown-gold eyes looked over a stray strand of black hair.

"You all right?" Gogron said. He sounded a little weak. _Fair enough. _"I don't remember what - "

"I'm fine," Dree said. She could make herself heard, if she worked at it, but it still ached a little. "You saved me." She put up a hand to her throat, where the blood was already dried, and felt no wound there. _It healed on the outside, at least._

"A puzzling thing," said the voice of Vicente Valtieri. Dree looked up and found herself surrounded by a forest of legs. "I've never seen him do such a thing when the frenzy was on him."

"She was not attacking him, or running away," Teinaava said. "Perhaps it never happened before."

"I wouldn't know," Gogron said.

"Forget that," said another familiar voice. Dree looked up, startled, and saw M'raaj-Dar crouch down in front of them. His tail twitched. "Always this foolish concern with the inessentials. Give me your arm, Brother."

"I thought you were on assignment," Dree said, watching him heal Gogron's wounds.

"I sent him up into the house to wait for my signal," Ocheeva said. "I thought that the absence of two members of the Sanctuary at once would be an opportunity too good to pass up. All of us know that Gogron usually goes out on Middas, when Telaendril is here to take his place. This way the traitor could catch him here with our healer out of the way."

"Un huh," Gogron said. "What if it had been M'raaj-Dar?" He twisted around so the Khajiit could reach the cut on his back.

M'raaj-Dar's tawny ears flickered. "Nonsense," he said venomously. "Idiot Orc. If this one were to kill everyone in the Sanctuary, would I not be forced to endure an even worse pack of idiots than you?" He was still very careful with the spell, Dree noticed. _He always is. _Dried blood turned to powder and drifted away under his touch.

"So what happened to - " She stopped as she caught sight of Marie's ankle protruding past the bed. The smear on the wall told the rest of the tale. "Oh."

"Besides," M'raaj-Dar went on. "Lucien LaChance is a racist, like all humans. He would not choose one who was not his own kind."

"We're assassins, Brother," Vicente Valtieri said. "We are all one kind, kith and kin."

"Lucien LaChance?" Dree said. "He _told _her to kill everyone?"

"A purification," Ocheeva said. "He believed the Sanctuary was tainted."

"By what?"

"I don't know," Ocheeva said. "But I plan to ask him."

"He will say she was simply mad, and acted alone," Teinaava said.

"No," Ocheeva said. "Not Antoinetta Marie. She would not disobey what she believed to be the word of the Night Mother."

"He will lie to you," Teinaava said. He bared his teeth. "You know him, as I do."

"I think," Vicente Valtieri said thoughtfully. Dree watched him lean on the claymore as if it were a walking stick. "I think that will depend on just how you ask. Don't you?"


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

_For those who require clarification, no, this is not based on the actual plotline of the game. This is a divergent plot based on the idea of Lucien and others behaving with a modicum of common sense. _

Lucien LaChance sat alone in his chamber at Fort Farragut, trying to read. He was finding it difficult to concentrate, which was unusual. He'd managed to come by a rare text on the subject of garroting. Normally, it would have held his attention for some time. The trouble was that it kept recalling recent events to his mind.

_Teinaava loved to read. It is one of the few things I passed on without deliberate training, _Lucien thought. He set the book down and stared at the stone wall. The cavernous room was dim, lit only by a few candles. No windows and no skylights pierced this far into the fort. It was part of the reason he had chosen to live here. The furnishings were expensive, but simple and sparse. Even at his present rank, Lucien was not a man addicted to the comforts of the flesh.

It was a pity about the Cheydinhal Sanctuary. He was still rather angry at Mathieu Bellamont for forcing him to destroy years of his own hard work. But how could he have known the traitor was a member of the Black Hand? Bellamont had given nothing away. No one had guessed at the depth of his betrayal, not even Arquen, whose insight frequently seemed preternatural.

_The Night Mother knew, _Lucien thought, and experienced another brief moment of anger. He squelched it quickly. Sithis and his mouthpiece had eyes everywhere. _She was right. We were fools not to realize it. _To make matters worse, the other survivors of the Black Hand had been all too eager to believe Mathieu instead of Lucien. _Some of them even seemed to _enjoy _his company. If I had not taken time to retrieve his diary myself..._ _Had I not reached Ungolim in time..._

He'd toyed with the idea of sending one of his underlings instead. In the end, he'd decided the matter was far too serious, and followed up his increasingly desperate investigation in person. No one would ever know what he had seen in that little room under the lighthouse. He'd made sure of that. It had only confirmed Lucien's own belief in the necessity of austere living. If you let yourself become self-indulgent, if you satisfied your own depravities at every whim, you would become careless. A fall would be inevitable.

_Of course, Mathieu's fall was a long time in coming. I should have guessed. I should have known. I might not now be in the position of rebuilding an entire Sanctuary out of nothing. _For that matter, he should have looked under the bed. It had been a long time ago, and he had been much less experienced, but that was no excuse. _For that matter, I should have bothered to dispose of the body. I wonder if Mathieu would have gone quite so far, without his mother's head to talk to all these years?_

There was no knowing. Lucien sighed and closed the book. He was still Speaker. That was something. And when Antoinetta Marie finally made her way back here, he would be able to start anew. He had one student left to him. That was some comfort. He would request another Shadowscale to parent, but it was unlikely his request would be granted. _One never knows. At least now I have learned the folly of raising more than one at a time. It is an ill thing for an assassin to have any relationship closer than that with his Brothers and Sisters in Sithis. I kept them distant from myself, but I was less successful in keeping them distant from one another._

Something went _clang, _far off in the bowels of the underground fort. Lucien paused, listening. He had lived in Fort Farragut a long time. He knew that his Dark Guardians were sometimes prone to set off traps by accident. A faint _hiss – hiss - ping _followed, the sound of tiny darts hitting walls in a deadly crossfire. _That is not one of the Guardians. They have learned to avoid the dart traps._

Silence followed. Lucien waited. He didn't really expect to hear anything else. Anyone who would come after him here would either be professional enough not to make a noise, however severe their wounds, or they would be dead within seconds of crossing the fort's outer threshold.

Lucien got up, placed the book reverently back on one of the oak bookshelves, and went to make sure the door was unlocked. Then he went to the table and poured himself a glass of wine. He sipped it as he stood and waited. After a few moments he heard another hiss, this one subtly different in tone. _Whomever it is has killed the nearest of my Guardians. Perhaps all of them. _That narrowed sharply the number of possible suspects. And he had shown Antoinetta Marie how to get in without setting off any of the traps. _Hmm. Interesting._

Five minutes later, the door latch clicked. The door eased slowly open. Darkness yawned on the other side.

"You may as well come in," Lucien said. "I admit, I'm rather curious to see who might have made it this far."

Ocheeva stepped into the dim light of the candles. Several small darts were stuck in the right shoulder of her armor, and a jagged hole on the other side suggested the recent removal of an arrow. Very little blood was visible there. There was considerably more around the cut on her left side, where something small and sharp had not quite made it up under her ribs.

"My Dark Guardians do not use knives," Lucien said.

"No, Speaker," Ocheeva said quietly. She reached back to pull the door closed, then leaned back against the wall, hands at her sides. "That was Marie."

Lucien did a rapid recalculation. Then he said, "So she lost her wits entirely at last. What happened?"

"Vicente Valtieri was burnt to ashes," Ocheeva said. Her voice went on in slow litany, pausing every so often to breathe. "Gogron gro-Bolmog and M'raaj-Dar were poisoned. The new sister she took by surprise, and stabbed to death. I do not know what she did with Telaendril's body, but I know that she is dead. I found her as she cut Teinaava's throat in his sleep. All of them are dead, Speaker. Everyone. There is no reason for you to pretend you did not know."

"You seem to have lost considerable blood, child," Lucien said. "For that I make allowances. But do not talk nonsense."

Ocheeva laughed ironically, then fell abruptly silent, in the manner of a person who has just been forcibly reminded that some of her ribs are broken. "Should this one believe that you would train a student who would disobey you? You, who have been my master from the shell?" She paused to breathe, shaking her head. "No, Speaker of mine. This one knows you too well. You would not be deceived by Antoinetta Marie."

"Still the child of your upbringing," Lucien said. He smiled a small, cold smile. "More than Antoinetta was, it appears. We did discover that Mathieu Bellamont was the traitor in our midst – not that I need explain myself to you. I suppose you've earned it, having won your way into this chamber alone. I could not withdraw the command. Particularly when I gave Marie orders not to speak to anyone."

"This one is deeply disappointed that you did not choose me, Speaker," Ocheeva said.

"I was inclined to believe you might attempt to spare Teinaava," Lucien said. "You were always so reluctant to hurt him, when you were small. Will you now tell me that I was wrong?"

"Teinaava." Ocheeva breathed the name as if it were a curse. Her next words arrived in a breathless hiss. "Yesss. I might have understood about the others. I did not care particularly for the new Sister. And M'raaj-Dar is not an easy man to live with. But that you would take from me my only brother, your only son... That I will not forgive, Speaker."

Lucien held himself very still. For all that he was not a social man, he understood a great deal about words and their use. There were semantic mistakes common to the recently bereaved, but Ocheeva would not be the one to make them. "M'raaj-Dar _is _not?" he said.

Then he heard the tramping footsteps in the hallway. _The footsteps of someone very large, wearing very heavy armor. Someone who has chosen to go silently until this moment._ _Someone who has been listening at the door all this time._

He was not entirely surprised to see Gogron gro-Bolmog open the door and duck inside. His helmet was too tall to pass under the lintel otherwise. The others filed in behind him, fanning out to either side of the door. Telaendril was not present. No doubt she was still on assignment, as usual. M'raaj-Dar paused beside the door long enough to heal Ocheeva's wound.

"You are not so easy to live with yourself," he said.

The injury was shallower than it looked, Lucien realized now. It would not have deceived him in full light. _But I thought she had received it from Marie, whose cuts are never shallow. It was not the light which deceived me. It was my own belief._

"It must have taken some contortion, to make such a mark yourself," he said. He never doubted for an instant that she could have done it. _I trained her myself._

Ocheeva shook her head as she straightened. "No, _Speaker_," she spat. "In fact, that was Teinaava." The other Argonian stood beside her. He was very still, as always, but the tip of his tail twitched ever so slightly. Lucien had seen him so only a very few times in his life, and only when he was very, very angry.

"Marie was not a bad choice," Vicente Valtieri said. "I don't believe any of us suspected her. I myself thought it was Ocheeva, at first."

_"What?" _said Ocheeva.

"Antoinetta failed only because of a very particular concatenation of circumstances," Valtieri went on, paying no attention. "Of course, she _was _entirely mad in her devotion to the Night Mother and the god. Except for young Vilindriel, whom she barely knew, she did not try to kill anyone quickly. She was fond of us, you see. It is too late to ask her, of course, but I believe she meant to give everyone the opportunity to make peace with the god."

"Yes," Lucien said musingly. "It does sound like something Antoinetta Marie would do. Strange, that I did not think of it." He _did _notice the smaller vampire creeping along the edge of the wall, trying to get behind him. She was entirely chameleoned against the stone, but the movement was quite visible to an eye as experienced as Lucien's.

"You've become what you consider a perfect assassin," Vicente Valtieri said, showing his fangs in something that might charitably be called a smile. "In the process, you've destroyed any capacity you might have possessed for emotional attachment. You've effectively handicapped your ability to predict the reactions of others."

"It seems rather arrogant of you to make such a judgment," Lucien LaChance said. "But humility has not been one of your strong points, Vicente."

Gogron gro-Bolmog chuckled behind his visor. Valtieri appeared to ignore him.

"True, certainly," Vicente said. "But I've been watching you a long time, Lucien."

"I am your Speaker," Lucien said. His own voice was flat in his ears, taut with anger. "If you kill me, you will be expelled from the Brotherhood."

"Yes," Teinaava said, speaking for the first time. "But we will not be alone. We will defeat the harbinger of the god's wrath, and regain the Night Mother's favor. All things are permitted to the strongest. You have said so yourself so very many times."

"And even if we are not accepted again," Ocheeva said, "It will be worth the price."

"I'm not sure you realize just what the price is," Lucien said.

"Tsk, man," Vicente Valtieri said, shaking his head. He drew his sword from its harness in a leisurely manner. The blade was nicked and scratched, dull in the dim light. "How long has it been since you actually had to fight for your life? Alone, without others of the Black Hand to defend you?"

"Not long enough for your purpose, I think," Lucien said. "And I suspect your wait has been even longer."

"Ours has not," Teinaava said, and moved.

---

A lot of things happened very quickly then. Dree saw M'raaj-Dar cast a fireball as big as his body at Lucien LaChance. It glared blue to Dree's altered vision, the same color as the blur of motion that was Lucien. He avoided the ball of flame easily, and it impacted harmlessly against the wall. The next instant he was invisible. That was no obstacle to Dree, who could still divine the pale outline of his body with her hunter's sight. She threw the spare knife she'd taken from Marie's body. As she'd expected, Lucien caught it and threw it back. Dree probably could not have moved in time, but Ocheeva was already between her and the Speaker. His invisibility snapped off the instant he threw the knife. He'd judged the distance perfectly, knowing the weapon would turn over in midair – so when it hit a target considerably nearer than he intended, it hit handle-first.

Ocheeva was driven back a step as the pommel smacked into her chest. LaChance could not pursue the advantage, however, because then Teinaava was upon him.

Dree was not sure any eye could follow what happened then. M'raaj-Dar stood back, a pale aureole glowing around his hands, but couldn't find a target. Gogron simply stood in the doorway with his axe in hand, the way Ocheeva had told him: _You are too slow for what will happen here, and too dangerous to us if you go berserk. And you are still weak from blood loss. M'raaj-Dar cannot heal that. _This latter point might also be true of Teinaava, but Gogron hadn't argued.

Dree shook her head, concentrating on the here and now. Ocheeva was part of the melee now, but Dree could not see what was happening. The two Shadowscale and the Speaker moved too fast for eyes to follow. Vicente Valtieri hefted his sword in one hand as he moved in slowly, watching. _I wonder if even _he _can tell what's going on, _Dree thought.

The question answered itself a moment later. Valtieri seemed to twitch sideways, moving barely a step to one side, but suddenly the claymore was bloody. Something hit the floor a few feet away with a wet _thunk, _and Dree's sensitive nostrils picked up the scent of human blood. The blur of movement resolved into two Argonians and one Breton. Lucien Lachance's hood had fallen back, exposing his disheveled hair. His left arm was gone. He still held a knife in the right. The old sword must have been sharper than it looked, because the cut had not yet begun to bleed. Lucien stepped quickly back, raising his knife arm, and blue light shot up from around his ankles. The wound might have healed. The pause was what killed him. Ocheeva and Teinaava darted in as one.

Everyone was suddenly still. Dree watched as Lucien LaChance stood swaying, staring down at the two wounds in his belly. They were perfectly straight and neatly in parallel, one above the other.

"You'll regret this," he said.

"I think not," said Vicente Valtieri, and cut off his head.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Ocheeva was swearing at the vampire before Lucien's body hit the ground. "Interfering old man! Now we will never know what wound would have killed him."

"My dagger was envenomed," Teinaava said.

"So was mine, idiot," Ocheeva snapped back, and coughed.

"You were hit," Teinaava said. "Argue later."

"Hrmph," M'raaj-Dar said. He padded forward silently.

Dree took one more look around the room as the light faded from Lucien LaChance. She found nothing but the people she knew. All the Guardians were well accounted for. They'd seen to that as a group. It had been a little odd, working together with so many. Dree had mostly stayed out of the way. _I'm still just an amateur. Let the professionals do what they do best._

And so they had. She went back to stand beside Gogron, letting her normal vision become paramount once again. "Is that all?" she said. "Is that really it?" Her voice was no better. She suspected it never would be, though M'raaj-Dar had tried to heal her.

"Nope," Gogron said. He flipped off his helmet, shaking out his black hair. "It never is. Remember, we've still got the Spirit coming after us. Not to mention anybody in the Black Hand who might've been attached to Lucien. They've got a window before we're back in when they can do whatever they want to us."

"I did not think such a small man could throw so hard," the Khajiit mage was saying. "It seems you have had the same ribs broken twice in one day."

"I owe you for that," Dree said, turning back to the others. "He wasn't going to miss."

"No," Ocheeva said. "Not Lucien." She held up her arms so M'raaj-Dar could apply the healing spell to her chest again. Dree noticed that she held onto her dagger. "But the distraction was crucial, as I told you it would be. You played your part well, Dree. I did not mean what I said earlier."

_She used my name. She's never done that before. _"Oh," Dree said. "I wouldn't care if you had. I know I'm not what you were looking for in a new Sister."

"No," Ocheeva said. "But I am glad it was what I found. I believe Gogron was right, though he did not mean it at the time. The Night Mother did send you to us. Even if it does mean Vicente survived to cheat us of our kill."

"I had my own score to settle," Valtieri said. The anger in his tone was bitter, and deep, and very old. "Vilindriel was not my first offspring, you know. She is simply the last surviving."

Everyone looked at him. Gogron was the one who finally said, "Ah hah."

"We had a difference of opinion," Vicente said. "Lucien was rather against the idea of vampires being added to our little band, particularly those whom he suspected might be more loyal to myself than to him. This was very early in the history of the Sanctuary, you understand. I thought they died by their own foolishness, at first. A failure to heed my warnings, a careless disregard of the sunrise - "

"A push out a doorway at the right time?" Dree said.

"Exactly," Vicente said. "He never spoke of it to me, but I think he let me see him on purpose. A warning, if you will. He would have me share the Gift only with those _he _thought should have it."

"Sounds like Lucien, all right," Gogron said. He looked at the body. "What are we going to do with him?"

"The same thing we did with Marie," Ocheeva said. She looked pointedly at M'raaj-Dar.

"Oh, yes, _we,_" the Khajiit said. "Always the kill belongs to you, and the cleaning up falls to this one. At least the filthy worthless Speaker is dead, and this one has no more to listen to him." A red-gold aura began to form around his hands as he spoke, and then he turned and cast the fireball. It did not miss this time. The body was vaporized almost on contact. The head and the arm followed soon after. Dree was glad. The smell of burning was far preferable to the stink of death.

"It is far too close in here now," M'raaj-Dar complained.

"We're finished," Ocheeva said. "Have a look around and see if he had anything we can use."

"It is a pity we cannot carry all the books," Teinaava said.

"We won't need them all," Ocheeva said.

"This one hopes so, Sister," said Teinaava, and went to rifle quickly through the shelves.

Dree ended up with Marie's dagger back, _and _Lucien's old one. It was plain steel. _Like Valtieri's's claymore. He was good enough he didn't need any enchantments, _Dree thought. _Maybe when I'm as old as Vicente, I won't either._

"I'm glad he's dead," she said to Gogron, as they made their way through the now-empty corridors toward the surface. The Orc carried a canvas sack full of books over one shoulder.

"Yeah," Gogron said. "Me, too."

"Do you think we'll make it?" Dree said.

"Everybody's got to go sometime," Gogron said. "Me, I figure on _later _instead of _sooner_."

"Me, too," Dree said. "Gogron?"

"Yeah," Gogron said.

"I'm not really sure how to say this..."

"Then I wouldn't," Gogron said. "Always better to wait until you're sure."

"I suppose it is," Dree said. She walked beside him, skipping nimbly over the occasional booby trap as Gogron went ponderously around them. Teinaava and Ocheeva went on ahead, making no sound but their heartbeats. Dree heard M'raaj-Dar's soft footsteps behind her. Valtieri left not even a heartbeat to track his passage, but she knew he was there. _Oh, yes. I know he's there, even without the sight. I wonder if he knows where I am, too. How _did _he and Ocheeva know what was happening in the Living Quarters? It certainly wasn't by the noise. The walls in there have to be two feet thick._

_Maybe I won't kill him, _Dree thought, albeit grudgingly. _I never knew my father._

It was still night when they reached the surface again. The entire set of harrowing events had taken less than two hours, and most of that had been travel to and from the chamber. _Marie was right, _Dree thought, and to her surprise, she felt a little sad. _Knife fights _are _short._

"Gogron," Dree rasped, as they stood in the ruined courtyard looking at the moon. Teinaava and Ocheeva were busy trying to find Lucien's horse, possession of which they seemed to be quietly but vehemently debating. M'raaj-Dar circled the court restlessly. One or two scorched bones were all that remained of his first sweep. Dree had gained a great deal more respect for the Khajiit's abilities in the course of the evening. Vicente Valtieri stood beside the fallen gate to the courtyard, saying nothing.

"Yes," Gogron said.

"Is it wrong that I miss Marie a little bit?" She was starting to hate the sound of her own voice.

"No," Gogron said. "I'll miss her, too. Being crazy didn't make her less of a Sister."

Dree nodded. "And Ocheeva was right," she said. "The god will still take her, won't he? She loved him more than anything."

"Yeah," Gogron said. "I think he will."

"So how are you feeling?" Dree said after a moment.

"I can just about walk straight," Gogron said. "If I work at it."

"I'm sorry," Dree said.

Gogron set down the sack of books and turned to look down at her. "I'm alive," he said. "That's better than I hoped for."

"Are you angry with me?" Dree said. Was it even possible to get a lump in your throat, if you were a vampire? _Maybe it's my imagination._

Gogron shook his head. "Maybe I didn't know what I was doing, but I'm glad I did it. And you traded me for your voice. I'm not going to forget that."

"Can you stand to listen to me?" she said. "I wasn't exactly a nightingale to start with."

Gogron looked at her without saying anything for a long minute. He opened and closed his hands, apparently decided against that, and went slowly to his knees instead. This put them roughly on eye level. Gogron put his gauntlets carefully on Dree's shoulders.

"I'm not much of a talker," he said. "So I'll try to make this as clear as I can. I don't care what you look like. I don't care how you sound. And I wouldn't trade you for anything you want to name. It's not just that I need somebody. It's that you're you."

"I still don't know exactly how to say this," Dree said. "So I'm not going to."

She leaned forward and kissed him. It was not a lingering kiss – that was impossible, given the logistics of Orcish lips and Bosmer – but it was enough. Gogron wrapped both arms around her and pulled her in against his breastplate. Dree returned the embrace with enthusiasm. The armor dented with an audible _crack. _

"Sorry," she said.

"Not to worry," Gogron said. "A steady diet of Orc will do that for you."

"At least you're not going to break me by accident," Dree said. She pulled back far enough to smile at him, not even trying to hide her teeth. "If anything hurts, I'll just bite whatever's closest." The smile widened. "Maybe I will anyway. Get up before somebody sees us, will you?" She offered him her hand. He chuckled, shook his head, and got up slowly on his own. He shouldered the books again as the two Argonians came toward them, leading a black horse.

Well. To call it a _black _horse was straining credibility just a little.

"Is that horse on fire?" Dree said.

"This is Shadowmere," Ocheeva said, as if that explained anything. "She would starve if we left her tied up here."

"I would prefer to keep her, but she is too conspicuous," Teinaava said. He slapped the horse lightly on the flank as Ocheeva let go of the bridle. The mare cantered off. "Perhaps we will find her again one day. I doubt there are many who can ride her."

"Not unless they really don't burn easily," Dree said. Vicente Valtieri came toward them as the light from the horse dwindled into the middle distance.

"Are we all ready?" he said. "It's rather a journey back, and I would just as soon not be burnt to ashes when the sun rises." M'raaj-Dar came back to the group, muttering something that sounded very much like _just sent off the only horse within miles_.

"It's too far to the Sanctuary for that," Gogron said. "But I know a place not far from here. Actually, it's a cave. It's not too big, but it's big enough. Probably smells pretty bad."

"Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose," Vicente said, his voice eloquent with fastidious distaste.

"Lead the way, Brother," Ocheeva said.

Gogron started off, his gait uneven on the weedy ground. Dree went lightly and silently beside him. She would never be able to sing, but that was all right. No song ever written could describe what she felt, setting out into the waning night with her brothers and sisters all around her.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Epilogue

_A/N: A helpful reviewer pointed out (thanks!) that perhaps I should mention that Shadowmere's flaming Nightmare look was from a version of AlienSlof's Better Horses mod. Oops._

The Spirit of Sithis is a fearsome thing to face alone. It is much less fearsome when faced in the company of deadly assassins. And if the Spirit had anything to say about being summarily destroyed six times in a row, it never shared its remarks on the subject.

The next evening found six assassins traveling in company back to Cheydinhal.

The evening after that brought them a visitor.

Dree heard the sound of an elven heartbeat as someone climbed down the ladder from the well. It wasn't Telaendril. Telaendril didn't wear fabric shoes and a black robe. Dree stood back in a corner and watched as Ocheeva stepped forward to meet the hooded woman. All around her, others stood in the shadows as well, waiting. There was no show of weapons. Assassins are not overly fond of show.

"Good evening, Sister," the woman said. Her voice was very soft, almost inaudible.

"The Night Mother smile upon you," Ocheeva said politely, with no apparent wariness. Dree was not fooled.

"As she smiles upon you," the woman said. "You must be Sister Ocheeva. My name is Arquen, and I am your new Speaker."

"Then welcome, Speaker," Ocheeva said, as if this were exactly what she had expected to hear. The level of tension in the room sank dramatically without a sound being made. "The Sanctuary awaits your orders."

"It is well," Arquen said gently. "It seems Lucien LaChance was sadly remiss in recruiting during his last few months. He was remiss in other things as well, but that is not for us to discuss here. I could bring you new members. But given your experience, I suspect I will be more pleased with the result if I place that task in your hands. Are you willing?"

"More than willing, Speaker," Ocheeva said. "With your approval of each candidate, of course."

"An excellent and a diplomatic response," Arquen said, and Dree saw the slim lips smile in the shadow of her hood. "I think we will do very well. Seek out those you know to be worthy. I will return in one week's time."

"We will look forward to it," Ocheeva said, and bowed her head. Arquen nodded in return, and turned to ascend the well again. She did not make herself invisible. Dree went over to where Gogron stood, idly tapping a gauntlet on his thigh.

"I think I like her," Dree said.

"Too early to tell yet," Gogron said.

"About those candidates," Vicente Valtieri said to Ocheeva. "There is something I've been meaning to discuss with you..."

The two of them wandered into Ocheeva's room, talking. M'raaj-Dar had already vanished back into the practice room. Teinaava went back to sorting Lucien LaChance's books onto the already-crowded Sanctuary shelves.

"Want to go practice?" Dree said.

"Sure," said Gogron gro-Bolmog.

They turned and went into the low room together, the vampire going joyfully in the shadow of the Orc.

THE END


End file.
